


Death is Part of the Process, Part Two: Hard Things and Soft Things

by Licoriceallsorts



Series: Death is Part of the Process [2]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Action/Adventure, Avalanche, Before Crisis, Crisis Core, Drama, Midgar, Multi, Romance, Shinra, Ventilation Shafts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-09
Updated: 2010-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:31:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Licoriceallsorts/pseuds/Licoriceallsorts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The events of Crisis Core and Before Crisis combined in one magnificent epic novel, told from the POV of the Turks. Action, angst, drama, humour, travel to exotic locations; death, sex, love and betrayal; illegitimate children and faulty materia.... This story has it all. Did I mention it stars Reno and Cissnei? Viewer discretion is advised.</p><p>This is the Second Part of "Death is Part of the Process". New readers may start here if they insist.<br/>THE STORY SO FAR... Cissnei has recently returned from a long assignment overseas. She and Reno are sent to the Midgar slums to eliminate a terrorist cell. In the course of the mission, Cissnei accidentally shoots a cat. Later, to make her happy, Reno saves its life. He and Cissnei screw up the mission and are suitably punished by Commander Veld. The cat follows Reno to work and refuses to leave, but soon adopts Rude as its favourite Turk. Meanwhile, an OC Turk named Natalya has been murdered in Icicle Inn while on a scouting mission. No one has yet claimed responsibility for her death. <br/>Now, read on....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New Recruits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Reno is not happy about Cissnei's latest assignment, three new recruits arrive, and a rookie does something unthinkable.

_   
_

The funeral the next day was brief. Lazard sent a wreath, as did some of the SOLDIERs who had gone on past missions with Natalya.   The flowers were silk and paper. The Turks burned these, together with her body, in the incinerator. They put her ashes in an urn, to be taken at some suitable time to her birthplace in Mideel, as she had once requested.  Then they all went back to work.




            A fortnight later, Rude and Cissnei returned from Icicle Inn, having made no progress with their investigations.  Reno and Cissnei were immediately dispatched to Junon, to investigate reports of suspicious individuals asking question in the docks and the old city. Again they found nothing.  Returning to Midgar, Cissnei barely had time to shower and change before she was back in the helicopter and on her way to Wutai, this time with Rosalind.

            Always Cissnei. Why? Reno’s subterfuge antennae were twitching. It was as if the Commander were keeping her out of the office on purpose.  What was he planning? What was up? 

            Meanwhile, Tseng had also been on the move, from Corel to the Mythil Mines and down to Wall Market, to make his preliminary assessments of the candidates Veld had selected.  All three passed muster, together with a fourth, late entry from Icicle Inn.  He gathered them together at the Academy in Junon, and the Commander flew down, accompanied by Rosalind, to put them through their paces.

            Three of the candidates were acceptable. The fourth, the boy from Madouge Corner, was quick and strong, but scored poorly on the intelligence test. Veld handed him on for assessment by SOLDIER.

            (“So there’s an intelligence test now?” said Rosalind. “Was that brought in because of Reno?”)

            Three was an unusually large number of trainees to take on at one time. Until they learned the ropes, rookies were hard work. But the Department was desperately short-staffed, and Veld did not want to pass on any of them. All in their different ways had promise. Natalya, in her final mission, had done well.

            A month after her death, therefore, Tseng gathered the team together for their customary morning briefing, and announced that the new recruits they’d been awaiting would be coming in for an orientation that afternoon. 

            “About time we had a rookie to do the filing,” cheered Reno.

            “_Three_ rookies,” Mozo reminded him. “One for the filing, one for the stock-taking, and one for the sandwich run. Man, who knows - we might even be able to have a day off.”

            “I wouldn’t count on it,” said Tseng. “Moving on to the next item, Cissnei’s been transferred to SOLDIER -”

            “What?” cried Reno, sitting up in his chair. “She’s left us?”

            “Not permanently; she’s still on D.A.R. payroll – “

            “But she’s only been back a month.  I thought she’d be here for a while.  We’ve hardly seen her. What’s she gone upstairs for?”

            “She’s been appointed to be the dedicated Turk-SOLDIER liaison officer.  It’s something we’ve been considering for a while. With all the joint missions we’ve been undertaking, we need a point of common contact.”

            “Desk job, huh?” Reno snorted. “Ciss’ll _love_ that.”

            Tseng ignored him and went on, “There is one other thing. Cissnei has been away for a while and it’s unlikely that many, if any, if the SOLDIERS know of her association with us.  There hasn’t always been a history of – how should I put it? – mutual confidence between SOLDIER and this department, and Director Lazard and the Commander think she will be accepted more easily if nobody draws attention to the fact that she’s a Turk. You are not being asked to lie if someone asks you directly; that would defeat the purpose. But you are asked to refrain from talking about her or making it known that she is one of us. You are also asked not to tell the new recruits about her. We don’t know yet if they’re going to make it past probation.”

            The briefing completed, Tseng gathered his papers and left.  The others dispersed to their various missions, leaving Rude, Reno, and Rosalind in the office, together with the little cat, whom nobody had ever succeeded in evicting. It lay on a pile of unfiled reports in the corner of Rude’s desk, its paws under its chest, purring contentedly.

            Reno was meant to be filling out a requisition form for the components he needed to upgrade the bugging system at the residence of the envoy from Wutai, but he was finding it difficult to concentrate.  

            First he clicked his pen-top, in, out, in, out…

            When that palled, he bounced an eraser on his desk.

            Then he began swiveling round in his chair.  Its bearings squeaked. The little cat stopped purring, and watched him with wide, astonished eyes.

            “Quit it,” said Rude mildly.

            “I’m thinking,” said Reno. “I need to move when I think.”

            “Go have a cigarette or something. You’re like a Jumping on speed today.”

            The chair spun a little faster. Reno said, “So, who’ve they sent Ciss to spy on, d’you think?”

            “Lazard?” Rude suggested.

            Reno shook his head. “He’s in on it. Turk-SOLDIER liaison, what bullshit. But SOLDIER are dense enough to buy it. No - It’ll be someone Lazard wants us to target.”

            “Maybe it’s that Second, Zack Fair. He was closer to Angeal than any of the others.”

            Rosalind, who had been listening, now chipped in with, “But Cissnei likes him.”

            Reno gave her a withering look. “How does she even _know_ him?”

             “She doesn’t know him. She just saw him in the lobby the other day.  She said he was the hottest guy in Shinra.”

            At that moment a sharp pain jabbed Reno in the chest: it was brief, but fierce, as if someone had stubbed out a cigarette in his gullet.  Heartburn – yeah, that must be it; too many late nights, too little solid food, and not enough sleep.

            “I think you could be right, Roz,” said Rude. “Zack Fair was Angeal’s protégé, and Angeal was Genesis’ closest friend.”

            “I bet Lazard thinks Zack knows something about what really happened with those two,” Rosalind elaborated. “Maybe Zack even knows where they are.  And Lazard wants Ciss to get Zack to tell her.”

            This was nothing out of the ordinary. Pain was not the only, or even always the best way to extract information. The Turks could play nice when the occasion called for it, and seductions of all kinds were part of their arsenal. 

            Rude said, “Well, that would explain why they chose her.  I mean, like you said, Reno, Ciss isn’t really desk job material.”

            “But she is gorgeous,” Rosalind added wistfully.

            Reno’s chair was spinning faster now.

            “Hey, be careful,” Rosalind warned him. “You don’t want to unscrew the seat.”

            Reno pressed a foot to the floor. The chair braked and stopped with a jolt. “The Commander can be such a bastard sometimes,” he declared.

            “You worried about Ciss?” asked Rude in some surprise.

            “I’m pissed off. I thought that now she was back we’d be partners again, the way we were before.  I like working with Ciss. We did all our training together, and I’m used to the way she operates.”

            “Not to mention the fact that she’s willing to put up with you,” added Rosalind.

            Reno stuck out his tongue at her. Then he went on, “The office isn’t the same without her. She’s already been away too long. Ciss belongs here with us. Not passed over to SOLDIER like a – I don’t know – some goddamn weapon prototype.”

            “It’s just a secondment,” Rude reminded him. “And it could be important.”

            “It’s still too close to home. Look, I just have bad feeling about it, OK?  I’ve heard some things about Mr Zack Omigosh-I’m-a-backwoods-virgin-want-to-see-my-big-sword? Fair. I’ve seen him at parties. He’s got a reputation.”

             “Takes one to know one,” said Rosalind tartly.

            ‘Thanks Roz, that’s helpful. Look – my point is, sure, Zack Fair’ll jump in the sack with Ciss. Who wouldn’t? But that doesn’t mean he’ll tell her his secrets. To get those she’d have to get under his skin. And I don’t think...” Reno tailed off.

            “What?” Rude prompted.

            “He’s not just some cute guy. He’s SOLDIER. Pumped with mako.  They’re all monsters.  She could really get hurt.”

            “She’s done this before,” Rude reminded him. “She knows the score.”

            “But she _likes_ him. Roz, you said so.”

            “I said she thought he was hot,” Rosalind corrected him.

            “Still not good,” said Reno. “You can’t start having feelings for your mark. You have to keep the line drawn.”

            Rude did not deny this, but said, “She’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done.”

            “Yeah, yeah.  I’m just saying – if she gets hurt, I’m having his balls, is all.”

            Having got that off his chest, he jumped from the chair and loped away to complete the preparations for orienting the new recruits. The requisition form remained on his desk, unfinished, forgotten.

 

 

.

 

 

            After lunch all available Turks assembled in the briefing room to meet the three trainees.  One was a boy, one was a girl, and one was a woman. Commander Veld introduced each in turn.  The boy had olive skin and a slum-gang hairstyle – ducktail behind, cornrows on the sides, thick spikey bangs falling over his eye. Previously he had worked for Don Corneo; his preferred weapon was the sawn-off shotgun. He would go by the name of Cavour.

            The girl was tiny, smaller than Cissnei, and scrawny, as if she’d never had a square meal in her life. The suit looked two sizes too big for her. Her skin was very white and her huge eyes and cropped hair were very black. A faint red scar marred her right cheek.  She held herself straight as a knife, her gaze moving slowly over the strangers around her, taking everything in, giving nothing away.  Her name was Aviva; she came from Corel, and her speciality was daggers.

            The third recruit, the woman, was strikingly beautiful.  She had a heart-shaped face, with high cheekbones and a full mouth, and her hair was long and silver, like Sephiroth’s, but streaked with black. She stood with her feet slightly apart and her arms folded, soldier fashion. Her reddish-brown eyes held no warmth. Her name, said the Commander, was Mink. She had been a mercenary and a bounty hunter before joining the Turks, and he was sure she would be an asset to the team.

            (In truth, as he had confided to Tseng earlier, Veld was not convinced that Mink would be anything of the sort.  She was twenty-six years old, which he felt was too old to make the psychological adjustments necessary for success as a Turk. She also came with the kind of baggage that couldn’t just be checked at the door.  Veld had changed his mind several times before finally accepting her, and in the end he had taken her partly out of fellow feeling, partly because her skills complemented those of the existing Turks, and mostly because she was the last recruit Natalya had scouted before she died.

            Natalya had interviewed Mink at the bar of the lodge at Icicle Inn, and it had been outside that same bar, as she was phoning Veld to give him the results of the interview, that she had been ambushed.  Mink, for whatever reason – she wasn’t much of a talker – had followed Natalya outside in time to find her unconscious and mortally wounded; she had driven off her attackers and raised the alarm, and had held Natalya’s hand while she died.  This made her, to Veld’s mind, something of an honorary Turk already.  He had decided to give her a try, and if it didn’t work out… well, she had made it plain to him in their talk earlier that morning that she had nothing particular left to live for.)

            Veld would leave his recruits to share their stories with their new colleagues in their own time - or not, as they chose. To join the Turks was, in a sense, to be born anew, to be given another chance in a world that rarely offered second chances, and never offered thirds.  All three understood this: he had made it very clear to them.

            “Take them away now and show them around,” he said to Knox and the others.  “They’ll start full time tomorrow.”

            Knox took the recruits down in the first lift. Rude, Reno, Rosalind, and Mozo followed in the other. When they came into the office, the woman, Mink, was standing against the wall, arms folded; the punk Cavour was studying the notice-board, and the girl Aviva was petting the cat.

            “What’s its name?” she asked.

            “No name,” said Rude. “Just ‘Cat’.”

            “I’m surprised you’re allowed to keep pets,” said Mink.

            “Oh, the cat works here,” said Knox. “It catches rats, same as the rest of us. Who wants to do the honours? Reno?”

            “Pleasure. OK, listen up. That there’s the photocopier, that’s the water-cooler – if you finish a bottle, replace it - stationery cupboard in here, kitchen down there, beer’s in the fridge, coffee in the cupboard, bring your own mug.  There’s more of us than there are desks, so sit wherever; we’re never all in the office at the same time.  The materia room and the weapons room are on the other side of the hall. And this,” he finished with a flourish,  “Is the ventilation hatch.”

            Rude grinned. “It’s initiation time.”

            Mink’s brow furrowed. Cavour glanced swiftly from face to face. Aviva kept her black eyes fixed on Reno, listening with all her might.

            “Right, rookies,” said Reno. “This is how we do it. You each get a list of fifteen items you have to collect from the floors above us.  You have two hours to get them. You can’t use the lifts or the stairs – you have to go through the ventilation ducts.  I’ve put materia for you in the ventilation system, and whatever you find, you can use. The way we used to do it was you had get back within two hours with as many of the items as you could find, but we’ve never initiated more than one recruit at a time before, so this time I’ve given a weighting to each item, and some are worth more than others because they’re harder to get.  The winner is whoever has the highest score. If you come back after the two hour limit, you’re disqualified.”

            “What do we get if we win?” asked Aviva.

            “You get to buy us a round of drinks at the Goblins Bar,” said Mozo.

            “With what?” said Cavour. “We haven’t been paid yet.”

            “Those are the rules,” said Knox. “Time and stealth are of the essence. Officially Director Veld knows nothing about this. If you get caught, you’re on your own. In that eventuality we expect you to eat the list and lie. I think you already know how the Chief deals with screw-ups.  So don’t screw up.”

            While they were talking, Rude had removed the ventilation hatch. “Off you go.”

            “Wait a minute,” said Cavour. “Who’s this Mrs Miggins? Who are all these people? What’s Dark Nation? How do we find them?”

            Mink moved forward and laid a hand on Cavour’s arm. “We’ll figure it out,” she told him. “That’s our job.” To Knox she said, “Can we have some flashlights?”

            “Right here,” said Rosalind, producing a box.

            One by one the new recruits crawled into the shaft. It was a tight fit, impossible to turn around in, unless you found a junction of pipes or you were a contortionist. Little Aviva hung back, taking time to read the list carefully, and went in last. Rude then replaced the hatch.

            “Let’s go,” said Rosalind. She and her fellow Turks hurried to the floor between floors, to the surveillance room where Tseng awaited them in front of a bank of closed circuit TV screens.

            “Let me see your list,” he said to Reno. “President Shinra’s Business Card – only twenty-five points?”

            “That’s an easy one,” Reno explained. “They must know his office is at the top of the building. He keeps the cards in his top drawer, unlocked. They’ll find them.”

            “A PHS photograph of SOLDIER second class Zack Fair doing jump-squats – really, Reno.”

            “I know, I know, too easy.”

            “Hojo’s glasses – a miniature train from Reeve’s model of Midgar – one of Palmer’s donuts – Scarlett’s lipstick, only fifty points? I think it’s worth more than that. Dark Nation’s paw-print. Lazard’s monogrammed handkerchief… nice. One of Mrs Miggins’s wooden spoons from the cafeteria – “

            “Nasty,” said Rude admiringly.

            “Sephiroth’s signature on their arm?”

            “He’s signed weirder parts of bodies.”

            “Heidegger’s underpants?” exclaimed Tseng.

            “They’re worth five hundred points,” said Reno. “Score those and you win.  But no one ever gets Heidegger’s underpants.”

            “Ugh, who’d want to?” said Rosalind. “Oh, look – “ she pointed at a screen. “There’s the boy now. And Mink’s made it up to the labs.”

            Cavour had come out on the 65th floor and was in the map room, checking out the scale model of Midgar. Mink, meanwhile, had dropped from a ceiling vent on the 68th Floor.  They watched as she looked around, got her bearings, saw a scientist in a lab coat approaching, and hid behind a corner. When the scientist turned the corner, Mink planted a swift blow on the back of his neck: he crumpled to the floor unconscious. She dragged him into the men’s washroom – the action moved at this point onto another screen – and propped him on the toilet seat in one of the cubicles. She put on his lab coat, took his glasses, and broke them under her heel.  She went back into the corridor and then into a control room (one screen over) where she spoke to a scientist, and went through a further door (another screen change) into what the Turks recognized as Hojo’s personal lab. 

            Hojo himself was standing with his back to her, his attention wholly aborbed by the huge amorphous blob slowly taking shape as something unimaginable in the giant test-tube that filled the centre of the room.  Mink spoke to him. He turned. She showed him the broken glasses in her hand. Hojo looked annoyed. She said something. He took off his glasses and gave them to her, then took another pair from the inside pocket of his lab coat and put them on, waving Mink away.

            Knox whistled. “I like her style.”

            Mink put Hojo’s glasses in her trouser pocket. She left Hojo’s lab, went back through the other lab into the corridor, and on to the men’s washroom, where she locked the door. She draped the lab coat over the unconscious scientist’s shoulders and put her suit jacket back on. Then she took out a little knife, climbed onto the cubicle partition, unscrewed the ventilation grille, pulled herself into the shaft, and was lost to sight.

            “Seven minutes,” said Tseng. “She’s good.”

            Of the little girl, Aviva, there was no sign. Reno wondered guiltily if she was lost in the pipeworks. 

            Two of the CCTV cameras were not working: Heidegger’s office and Palmer’s office came up as blank screens. In fact Palmer’s camera had broken down several months ago; it kept slipping down to the bottom of Reno’s to-do list. Heidegger’s must have malfunctioned just now.

            Back on the 65th floor, Cavour had finally made up his mind to grab a toy train and run.  He dived headfirst into the ventilation shaft. It took him almost half an hour to reappear, this time in the presidential suite, holding a sphere of materia in each hand. By this point there was little doubt that Mink would win.  She had been to the cafeteria on the 61st floor, spoken to the fearsome Mrs Miggins, and been given a spoon in exchange. She had gone down from there to the 58th floor, dropped into the SOLDIER changing room, dressed herself in a pair of third class trousers and a sleeveless purple turtleneck, and walked out into the corridor.  The effect of her appearance was like poking an anthill with a stick: SOLDIERs seethed around her. Women, especially beautiful women, were a rarity in their department.  Guided by her attentive entourage, Mink was escorted to the lounge area, where she found Zack Fair sitting with Kunsel.  An animated conversation ensued. Whatever it was she said to him, Zack willingly obliged, grinning handsomely and talking while he went through his moves.

            Reno knew Rosalind and Rude were expecting him to say something, so he gritted his teeth and held his tongue.  He was looking out for Cissnei, but could not see her. 

            “Twenty minutes left,” said Tseng. “Where’s Aviva?”

            “If she doesn’t turn up, I’ll go look for her,” Reno volunteered.

            “You love any excuse to go crawling through that maze,” laughed Mozo.

            With ten minutes left to go, the Turks returned to their office, and Rude opened the ventilation shaft. It wasn’t long before Cavour came tumbling out, his pockets heavy with materia, his hands clutching treasures, his hair full of dust and cobwebs. 

            Mink was next. “Well, sir?” she said to Tseng. “Do I pass inspection? I’m assuming you watched the whole performance.”

            The clock was ticking. Two minutes. One minute. Thirty seconds.

            From inside the shaft came a distant rattling that rapidly grew louder and closer…  Aviva slithered out, belly down like a snake, and somersaulted onto the floor.

            Getting to her feet, she reached inside her suit jacket and withdrew a wad of khaki-coloured fabric, which she threw, with some force, in Reno’s direction. He caught it against his chest, unfurled it, and, holding it by his fingertips, lifted it up for everyone to see: a pair of extra-large silk boxer shorts, embroidered with the monogram **HH****.**

**            “**Not Heidegger’s underpants?” exclaimed Rosalind disbelievingly. “That’s a first!”

            Wordlessly, the girl nodded.

            Something about this didn’t feel right to Reno.  The girl had just won – won spectacularly – but she didn’t look pleased with herself. She looked sick, and scared; scared sick.  There was a desperate defiance in the way she was standing. Her face seemed even whiter than before, and the scar was a livid slash across her cheekbone. Weirdly, her hair was wet, as if she’d just taken a shower.

            Tseng, too, seemed to have realized something was amiss. “How did you get these?” he asked her.

            She opened her mouth and her throat moved, but no sounds came out.

            Rude reached out a hand to touch her shoulder. She jumped, glancing round wildly at him. On his face was a strange expression: compassion struggling against disgust.  

            “You don’t have to say it,” he told her gently.

            Behind those sunglasses he was sometimes the quickest of them all to see things.

            The rest of them stared at her, the words she had not spoken slowly forming in their minds, and when she saw the realization grow in their eyes, and then the disbelief, a red flush crept over her face to the very roots of her cropped hair.

            “Oh my,” said Rosalind, “You _didn’t_?”

            “Bloody hell,” muttered Mozo.  Knox put his hand over his mouth.

            Tseng began, “Aviva –“ but was lost for words to go on.

            The girl’s black eyes darted from one face to another.  She looked puzzled now as well as frightened. “What?” she demanded. “Did I do something wrong? Didn’t I do what I was supposed to do? You said we have to do whatever it takes to get the job done. I did that. I won. Isn’t that what you wanted? Sir?”

            “Aviva – “ said Knox hesitantly. “It was just – a game – “

            “A _game_?” Aviva’s mouth twisted. She looked as if she might vomit. “Oh god.  I thought – wasn’t it a test? Oh god. You must think I’m….“ There were tears in her eyes. She rubbed at them with a clenched fist, and said furiously, “Well, fine! Think what you like. Go on, laugh at me. I don’t care!  You’re all nothing but a bunch of pussies anyway – “

            She fled from the room.

            “Rosalind, go after her,” said Tseng, gathering his wits.  
            “Yes, sir.”

            “I’ll go too, sir,” said Mink, following Rosalind.

            Only the men were left in the office.  They all looked at Tseng, though what they expected from him, they themselves did not know.  They had not laughed at Aviva, yet they felt cheapened.  They had not told her to do it or even suggested it, yet they felt they were in some way to blame.  And they were angry with her too, for spoiling the afternoon.  The pictures in their minds were ugly ones. She had seemed to all of them, not just Tseng, to be little more than a child.

            Reno’s own gut was churning a little; anger prickled under his skin, though he hardly knew why. Taking out a cigarette, he lit it.

              Tseng smoothed a hand over his hair, a gesture he made only in moments of severe uncertainty.  Out loud he said, “What was she thinking of?”

            “Well,” drawled Reno, blowing the smoke down his nostrils, “At least you got to admire her willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice.” 

            Tseng crossed the room in a fluid movement and took hold of Reno’s arm. “Bad joke,” he said. His voice was soft, but his fingers in Reno’s flesh were like grappling hooks. It was always stupid to provoke Tseng, and often painful, and Reno knew it – but, as he’d proved so many time before, sometimes he couldn’t help being stupid. Or didn’t care.

            “Outside,” Tseng ordered.

            He hauled Reno down the corridor and round the corner to where they could not be seen through the glass doors or from the elevators. There was no sign of the girls.  Taking hold of the front of Reno’s shirt, Tseng pushed him into the corner and held him there, and Reno let him do it.

            “What’s wrong with you?” Tseng demanded.

            Reno bared his teeth. “With _me_, Boss?”

            “You make a joke out of everything. You take nothing seriously.”

            “So? What’s the big deal?”

            “For God’s sake. Heidegger!” Tseng spat the name in disgust. 

            Reno shrugged. “Whatever it takes, yo.”

            “Did she think we _wanted_ her to do that?”

            “Hey, screwing the top brass, it’s all in a day’s work, right?”

            Tseng glared at him. “She’s _fifteen years old.”_

“And? So?”

            “She’s a _child_. Doesn’t that bother you?”

            “Should it? Seriously, boss, am I missing something here? Because I don’t get it. You’re the one who hired her – you and the Chief. What did you tell her the job was? Babysitting?”

            Tseng’s fist was a blur as it smacked into Reno’s face.

            Reno felt his lip split against his tooth, tasted the blood in his mouth.  “Fuck this,” he muttered, “Let go of me.” With a sudden twist, he wrenched himself free of Tseng’s grasp and leapt sideways, beyond the reach of Tseng’s arm.

            “What the hell was that for?” he demanded.

            “Sometimes,” Tseng ground out, “I could _kill_ you.”

            “Yeah, I got that part.”

            Tseng was struggling to master his temper. Disdaining to reply, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it around his knuckles, which he’d scraped on Reno’s teeth.  Reno touched a finger gingerly to his mouth. The split was deep, and the lip was swelling fast.  Tseng looked up. “You should get some ice on that,” he said in a calmer voice. Putting a hand under Reno’s elbow, he took him to the kitchen, sat him down in a chair, filled a plastic bag with ice cubes, rolled it in a tea towel, and handed it to Reno, who pressed it against his puffed mouth. At the sink Tseng washed his skinned knuckles with soap and water.




            “We were all kids,” said Reno thickly. “Man, Ciss was what? Ten? When the Chief recruited her? And how old were you?” 

            Tseng continued to concentrate on lathering his hands. A little wrinkle appeared between his brows.

            Reno hadn’t really expected an answer.  He sat quietly for a moment, thinking through what he wanted to say.  It wasn’t as if he _liked _the thought of what had gone on up in Heidegger’s office any more than the rest of them did… But whether they liked it or not, it was done now, and the way they were all reacting wasn’t helping anyone. The poor kid had only been trying to please.

            He said, “Listen, Boss, I don’t know where Nats found that girl, but I can guess it wasn’t a church social. It doesn’t take much imagination to see what kind of life that kid’s been leading. So why d’you think she didn’t know what she was signing up for when she joined us? When I was fifteen, I knew, and I fucking jumped at the chance. You sure as hell knew. Now you’re carrying on like she’s some poor little outraged innocent – or like _you_ are – but since when have we been hiring _nice_ girls?  What use would _they_ be? That kid knew exactly what she was doing, believe me.

             “And what was that?” asked Tseng, drying his hands methodically.

             “Winning.”

            Tseng folded the towel and turned around. “She’s in the washroom right now crying her eyes out.”

            Reno began to feel impatient. The Boss could be so _dense_ sometimes. “Oh, for God’s sake. Not because of Heidegger. He was just a job to her. She’s crying because of _you_.”

             “Me?”

             “Yeah. And me. All of us. It isn’t what she did that made her ashamed. It was the way we looked at her. Like we couldn’t believe anyone could be so stupid, so - cheap.  Like she made _us_ ashamed. She was trying to _impress_ you, Boss, don’t you get that?  In the only way she knows, I guess.” Suddenly, Reno grinned. “She’s friggin’ impressed me, I can tell you. That girl must have one hell of a strong stomach.“

             “Don’t – “

             “No, but joking aside, that’s one smart kid you got there, Boss. She worked out what she needed to do, and she did it, and she didn’t let anything stand in her way. She got the job done. She gave one hundred perfect. And she _won_. So who gives a shit how old she is? She’s one of us now, and you should be patting her on the back, not – “ he touched his swollen face – “Giving fat lips to your loyal staff.”

            Tseng’s face was a study, frowning, yet smiling…. As much as he ever smiled, which was never more than a slight upward quirk of the corners of his mouth, and even that, it often seemed to Reno, given a

gainst his better judgement, as if he’d been told early on in life that a sense of humour was a weakness, and had taken the advice to heart.

            “You shouldn’t be talking,” he said. “Put that ice back on.”

            “C’mon, Boss, lighten up. There’s an upside to all this. We’ve got Heidegger’s underpants in our custody now.  We could  -”

            “No,” Tseng cut in firmly.

            “You haven’t even heard my idea yet.“

            “I don’t need to.  I forbid it. If he ever finds out… “  
            “You can handle him,” said Reno. “We have complete faith in you.”

            Tseng’s mouth quirked again. “Glad to hear it. But I still forbid you.”

            “Spoilsport. You just don’t like it when I’m right, do you? Come on, admit it.”

            “Damn. You got me there.” Tseng gave him a level look. “Fortunately, it doesn’t happen very often.”

            And that was the problem with the Boss and his tightarsery, thought Reno: sometimes it was impossible to tell when he was joking, and when he meant it.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note on the new recruits:  
> "Aviva" is "Knives, Female" (Player character I)  
> "Cavour" is "Handgun x 2, Male" (Player character D; Rafe at Gunshot Romance)  
> "Mink" is "Fistfighter, Female" (Player character E; Cyr at Gunshot Romance)


	2. A Night Out in Midgar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Turks close ranks against Heidegger, Reno mistakes Cissnei for someone else, and the rookie redeems herself

Some unusually gentle questioning by Commander Veld persuaded Aviva to reveal that she did not think Director Heidegger knew who she was. She also admitted that she was the one who had disabled the security camera in his office through the access panel in the ventilation shaft.  Having read Reno’s list carefully, and seen that there was only one sure way to win, she had gone back to the locker bay on the 64th floor where, earlier that morning, she had exchanged her civvies for the suit. Here she had put her old clothes back on, then asked the cleaning lady for directions to Heidegger’s office, and made her way up there. More detail than that she was reluctant to give.  Veld saw nothing to be gained from insisting.

            On the whole he was inclined towards Reno’s view of the matter. Aviva had only done what a Turk should do, analyzing the problem at hand and solving it in the way that seemed to her the most efficient. Whether her actions could be described as strictly necessary was another matter - but she had thought they were. And if, in the many years to come of her employment with the Shinra Electric Company, she were never to be called upon to do anything worse, well, then the world would have changed into a place Veld no longer recognised.

            Heidegger’s actions the next morning seemed to confirm that he had no idea his little visitor had been a Turk. He came in person down to the 48th floor, when normally he would have sent a minion, and demanded Tseng hand over the previous day’s tapes from his office’s camera. “What for?” asked Tseng. Heidegger muttered something into his beard about intruders and fangirls and lax security. “As it happens,” said Tseng, who was enjoying watching Heidegger squirm, “The camera malfunctioned yesterday, at about four o’clock. Reno’s fixing it now.” He could see that Heidegger did not believe him. Too bad.  

            While Heidegger was attempting to browbeat Tseng, Rude went up to Heidegger’s office and replaced the ice cubes in the fridge’s freezer tray with specially shaped blocks of blizzaga. These, taken in a glass of the whiskey Heidegger kept at the back of his bookshelves, would quickly blur his memory of recent events.  As for Aviva, Veld thought, and Tseng agreed with him, that it would be better to keep her out of the way for a week.  So they sent her off to Junon with Knox, where she could attend classes at the Academy in the morning, and help with preparations for the President’s visit.  Her official starting date was penciled onto Veld’s calendar as the 20th February, when she would begin her duties in Midgar in the traditional way, on patrol in Sector Eight. 

            Having made these arrangements and sent the girl and Knox on their way, Veld closed his door and enjoyed the luxury of a few minutes alone.  He was thinking, as he always did when dealing with his younger Turks, of his dead daughter, who would have been twenty-eight this year, and wondering what she would be doing now if she had lived to grow up in this world he had once worked to make safe for her.

            Veld’s grief for his lost child was not the same in substance, in quality, as the grief he and his Turks had felt at the death of Natalya. This grief would not pass with time. It never grew less, though he had grown used to living under its weight. He never forgot to remember her. Every moment of every day, her name was the song playing in his head.

 

*

_20th February, 2001. _

Reno was sitting alone at a pavement table outside a fashionable coffee shop on Loveless Avenue.  Music and laughter, the tinkle of glasses and silver cutlery, filled the air. Although it was late, the entertainment district wouldn’t be shutting down for another couple of hours. In the background, as always, hummed the steady muted throb of the reactors pumping the city’s lifeblood.__

            He looked up and down the street. Nothing. He took out his PHS: the display read _02:05. _ It wasn’t like Cissnei to be late. If she was planning to be a no-show, she would have called him.  This rendezvous was her choice. They hadn’t seen each other since she’d moved upstairs to work with Lazard, and he was missing her more than he would ever have let her know. 

            A woman came round the corner and caught his eye. Long legs made longer by five inch stilletoes, black mini-dress so tight it could have been spray-painted onto her curves, heavily made-up face, sparkly earrings, auburn hair twisted into a sexy mess of curls… His first thought was _hooker_. Then she smiled at him and waved, and he realized it was Cissnei.

            “Nice duds,” he said, pulling out a chair for her.

            She kicked off the shoes. “I can hardly walk in these things.”

            “Standard SOLDIER issue?”

            “I’m going to a party, so I can’t stay long. Sorry I’m late, Reno.”

            “I bought you a coffee. But it’s getting cold.”

            “That’s OK. I don’t want anything. I just wanted to see you.”  She reached out, took his hand, and squeezed it briefly, which was about as big a gesture of affection as you could hope to get from Cissnei. Just for a moment, though, it felt more as if she were holding on to him. He saw that the nails on her hands were long and fake and painted bright red.

            “So,” he said, “How’s life on the 51st Floor?”

            “Like being trapped inside a teenage boys’ locker room, but otherwise, it’s OK. Lazard’s decent.  They all seem to like him, because he’s fair, and they respect him, because he’s stricter than he looks.  But he’s not the Chief.”

            “So what’s he got you doing?”

            “Paperwork, mostly.”

            “Sounds like a blast. And how’s your boyfriend?”

            Cissnei gave a long-suffering sigh. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

            “Who isn’t?”

            “Zack isn’t.”

            “What makes you think I was talking about Zack Fair? Hah – gotcha!”

            A motorbike came up the street. For a moment Reno’s face was caught in the beam from its headlight. Cissnei leaned forward, lifting a hand to almost touch his mouth.  “You’re cut,” she said,  “What happened?”

            “This? It’s nearly healed.”

            “But how’d you get it?”

            “It was nothing,” said Reno, before deciding to admit, “Well - the boss and I  had a bit of a fight.”

            “What? You and Tseng? Why, what about?”

            “Why does it have to be about anything? Can’t two guys just have a fight without needing a reason?”

            “You, yes. But if Tseng got angry enough to hit you, you must have really pushed his buttons. So come on, spill. What were you fighting about?”

            “You,” said Reno, realizing, as the word left his mouth, that it was true.

            “_Me_?”

            “Yeah. You.”           




            “What about me?”

            “Well, Ciss, call me old-fashioned, but I just don’t think we should be pimping each other round the building, is all. Since you ask.”

            Red lips drawn into a thin line, Cissnei sat back in her seat and gave him a long, thoughtful look.

            She said, “It’s never bothered you before.”

            “Yeah. Well.”

            “You’ve done it yourself. We all have.”

            He didn’t much care for the way this conversation was going, so he took out a cigarette and lit it.

            “Those things’ll kill you,” said Cissnei.

            “If I live long enough to die of smoking, I’ll call myself a lucky man.”

            “You’re a fucking idiot, Reno, you know that?”

            “Yeah.”

            “I can fight my own battles.”

            “I know.”

            “You don’t know what my mission is with SOLDIER, so don’t start imagining you do.”

            “Understood.”

            She looked at her watch, and bent down to put her shoes back on. “I really have to go – “

            Abruptly he sat forward and grabbed her hand. “Ciss, there’s a rave on tonight in the old warehouse across from the train station. Ditch the date and come with me.”

            “Aren’t you working?”

            “I’m on stand-by. I promise I’ll only have one beer. C’mon, Ciss, you know you want to.”

            “Reno, listen – “

            “Zack’ll be there.”

            “I _know_,” said Cissnei with heavy emphasis. “Where do you think I’m going? I’m _working, _Reno.” She pulled her hand free and stood up, unsteady in the high heels. “And I’d really, really prefer it if you didn’t come. See you soon, OK?”

            She tottered away across the cobblestones. He watched her go, almost wishing she would fall so he could run and pick her up, help her. But she wouldn’t thank him. She’d made that loud and clear.

            A drink sounded good right now. A cold beer – two cold beers, and a warm nameless somebody to share them with. Somebody who didn’t know what he did for a living and had never heard of Shinra. Yeah, right. Some deaf blind chick, maybe…

            His PHS rang.

            “Reno? It’s Tseng. Are you anywhere near the Sector 8 Reactor? Good – listen, the new recruit’s run into some anti-Shinra elements.  We don’t know how many, but more than she can handle. What weapons are you carrying?”

            “Rod. Gun.” Reno was already on his feet, running as he spoke. “Other gun. Boot knife. Wire.”

            “Materia?”

            “A little Thundaga.”

            “It’ll have to do.  We think they’re planning to blow up the reactor.”

            “Shit,” exclaimed Reno. “What loony bin did these guys escape from?”

            “We’ll know soon. Rosalind’s working on intel now. Whatever happens, don’t let them get to the reactor. We’re counting on you.”

            “Roger.”

            Reno snapped the phone shut and grinned. _Reno to the rescue once again!_ The way he was feeling tonight, a hard fight was an even sweeter prospect than a cold beer.

            Soon he came across the first bodies: several of Heidegger’s grunts with their necks snapped, and the warm corpse of an freshly-killed enemy soaked in blood from head to foot. It seemed to be wearing some kind of military fatigues. Impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman: the face was obscured with goggles, and a hat like a pie had been pulled down around the ears, completely covering the hair. He ran on, passing more bodies and watching where he put his feet. The cobbles were slippery with blood. Obviously Aviva wasn’t the tidy sort.

            He found her at the entrance to the reactor. The door had been blown open, and six of the enemy were closing in on her. Three corpses lay on the ground with knives in their necks. Aviva stood empty handed, but dauntless.

            “Hey rookie,” he called, “Didn’t anyone ever teach you that knives make crappy ranged weapons? Here, catch – “

            He tossed her a ball of thundaga. She leapt into the air, twisting like an acrobat to catch it underhand, while the enemy, thrown off their stride by this abrupt turn of events, gawped open-mouthed. Still in mid-air she cast the materia: there was a flash and a roar and three of them lay dead as she landed with her feet neatly together.  Reno swiftly eliminated the other three with his rod.

            “Nice moves, rookie.”

            She was breathless and sweating and her eyes were fiercely grateful. “Thank you, sir. I thought I was dead there for a minute.”

            _Sir! She’d called him “sir”!  Suck on that, Cissnei!_

He was feeling better already.

“How many got inside?” he asked her.

            “I don’t know, sir. A few.”

            Three more of the enemy came running round the corner. “You won’t get away with this,” they cried. “Death to the Shinra!”

            “Yeah,” said Reno. “That’s original. Listen, kid, I’ll hold these guys off. You go take care of the ones inside.  The important thing is to protect the reactor.” He shot a bolt of electricity at the enemy, forcing them back. “If the reactor blows, everyone on this plate goes with it, and everyone underneath. Understand? Here, take this -” he slipped his remaining materia into her pocket – “And these – “ he thrust the two guns at her. “Now hurry!”

            “Yes, sir! I won’t let you down, sir!”

            The darkness inside the doorway swallowed her up. Reno turned to deal with the enemy.

            He wanted to take at least one of them alive for questioning, but they refused to yield. They fought like men possessed, forcing him to kill all three of them. It was only once they were dead that he was able to stand still long enough to take a good look at them. Who were they? Why were they doing this? Why were they throwing their lives away? And why were they all wearing blue goggles? It couldn’t be easy to see through those things in Midgar’s murky light.  Was there something wrong with their eyes?

            Mako sprang to mind. Could they possibly be some of the SOLDIERs who had deserted in Wutai the previous year? Was Genesis the one behind this attack? No, that made no sense – If they’d been SOLDIERs, he, Reno, wouldn’t still be standing here without a scratch on him.  Unless maybe they were drugged, or something…

            “Impressive,” said an unfamiliar voice.

            Reno looked up. Just beyond the range of his EMR stood a man different from the others yet clearly one of them – their leader, probably. He was bare-faced, brown-eyed, dressed in a grey shirt and trousers, with a bandolier across his chest. A camoflage bandana held back his scruffy black hair. He looked young, but rough. He did not appear to be armed.

            “Just what I would have expected from you – Reno, the fastest of the Turks,” he said.

            Reno stood up, holding his rod behind his back. Stealthily he felt with his thumb for the trigger. Click. Nothing._ Shit._ He was out of juice, and he’d given the last of his materia to the rookie.

            This guy was big. Big and strong. Big and strong and slow, hopefully.

            “You seem to know me,” said Reno. “Have we met?”

            The big guy chuckled. Reno felt a little unnerved. Did he not care, _at all_, that his men lay dead all around him?

            The big guy said, “It’s only common sense to know your enemy. But you don’t know me. You may – briefly – live to regret that. Your speed will be no match for my strength.”

            “You think so, do you?” said Reno, stalling for time and trying to think of a plan. He still had his boot knife. If the guy had no ranged weapons, he might be able to nip inside his guard and take him before he had time to react.  On the other hand, if the guy produced a gun, he was probably stuffed.  Momentarily he considered running away, but knew he couldn’t: Aviva already had enough on her hands. He had to hold this guy here and hope that no more came after him.  “We won’t know for sure until we test that out, will we?”

            “Interesting,” said the big guy. “Very well, I accept your challenge. Let’s see the true strength of the Turks.”

            To an onlooker, the battle that followed might have looked like nothing more than Reno going round in circles. The big guy _was_ slow, but he was level-headed.  As Reno darted and feinted, seeking an opening, the big guy shifted on the spot, always keeping Reno straight in front. Every time Reno saw an opening and tried to close in, his move was blocked.

            He began to get the distinct impression that he was being played with.  This irritated him a little, until he understood its significance. If the big guy was in no hurry, that meant he didn’t know there was another Turk inside the reactor – which meant he was trying to keep Reno busy here so that his own men would have time to plant their bomb.  Well, two could play at that game. If there was one thing Reno was good at, it was running rings around self-righteous bastards.

            Still and all, he’d be quite happy if the reinforcements arrived soon.

             “You see,” said the big guy, “You boastful Turks are nothing without your toys and your drugs and your magic. I stand before you as the Planet made me, my bare hands my only defense, and you cannot touch me.”

            “Oh man,” said Reno, “Why do I always have to get the crazy ones?”

            That seemed to strike a nerve.  The big guy scowled and said angrily, “You’re mocking me now, Shinra scum, but soon you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face.”

            “When you rearrange my features – yeah, I get it.”

            _Tseng, a little help here!_

“By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll be on your knees begging for mercy just like the one we killed up in Icicle Inn.”

            Reno skidded to a halt. 

            His heart was pounding. A red film seemed to have covered his field of vision.

            “That was _you?”_

            The big guy had been right about one thing: Reno wasn’t laughing any more.

            “She mocked us too,” said his enemy. “She called us fools and said we were deluded. But she was the one who realized her mistake in the end.”

            “You’re lying,” said Reno. “Turks don’t beg.”  
            He launched himself like a lightning bolt, straight onto the big guy’s left fist.

            The other fist rammed into his gut. Reno staggered and fell. Next moment he felt himself being picked up off the ground by his hair and slammed into the wall. Before he had time to breathe, it happened again, and again; his head was about to be cracked open like a boiled egg -

            “Sir!” a girl’s voice rang out. “I’ve secured the reactor and – “

            The big guy released him. He fell to the ground in a heap, face down.

            “Run, rookie,” he gasped. “This guy’s trouble – “

            The big guy’s boot came down on his neck. He fell into peaceful oblivion…

 

*

 

            … and came up again though a sea of silver needles, breaking the surface to suck in a lungful of air.

            The girl was shaking him frantically. “Sir? Are you all right, sir?”

            “What happened?” He tried to sit up, but his arms and legs wouldn’t cooperate.

            “I used one of your Cures, sir.  It’s OK, they’ve gone. The reactor’s safe.”

            “How long have I been out?”

            “Not long. Maybe ten minutes. That big guy was tough, sir. He dodged all my knives and knocked me down and I was sure I was a goner, but then one of the others came in and said they were going to Junon to regroup, and the big guy told this other guy to finish us off, and he left, and I killed the other one, sir.”

            She pointed to a corpse not far away, lying spreadeagled on the cobbles with a knife sticking out of its eye.

            “Nice work,” said Reno. “You saved my life, rookie.”

            “That makes us even then, sir.”

            He grinned. A little hesitantly at first, she smiled back. She had an appealing face, he realized: not pretty, perhaps, but intelligent and eager.

            The numbness had faded to a tingling in his ears and fingertips. “I’d better call the Boss,” said Reno, taking out his phone and beginning to dial. “Let him know what’s happened.”

            “The boss? Oh, you mean Mr Tseng?”

            “Yeah,” laughed Reno. “That’s who I mean. Hullo, is that Mr Tseng speaking? It’s me, Reno.  No, I did not get knocked on the head. I was just being polite, OK? Yes, she did.  She was good. The sector’s secure. Apparently they’ve withdrawn to regroup in Junon. Yes, I know the President is there. No, not good. What? AVALANCHE? What the fuck is that supposed to stand for? OK, whatever. Listen Boss, you need to know this.  They’re the ones who got Nats. I met their leader –“

             “Shears,” said Aviva. “That one I killed called him Shears.”

            “Apparently his name is Shears. No, we had a cup of tea together, what do you think?  Yes, right away. Understood. Two more pistols and a crate of materia. Twenty minutes. Roger.”

            He turned to Aviva. “Well, no rest for the wicked. C’mon, kid. You and me are going to Junon.”

 

 

 


	3. A Day's Work in Junon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we follow our intrepid Turks to Shinra's Second City, the AVALANCHE leaders introduce themselves, and Reno's request for a miracle is granted

Back at the office, Aviva quickly changed into something less bloodstained. The helicopter was waiting on the pad, rotors turning. Reno took the controls. One of the army dudes asked if he could sit in the co-pilot’s seat. “I’ve never been in a helicopter before,” he said.

            Reno no longer bothered asking Heidegger’s grunts for their names. They all looked the same and they all died with such regularity that it wasn’t worth getting to know them. But this one seemed like a nice kid. With his eager blue eyes, spiky blond hair, and soft cheeks innocent of a razor’s touch, he couldn’t be any older than Aviva.

            “Help yourself,” said Reno. “Just don’t touch anything.”

            The flight south to Junon took a little over an hour. Halfway there the grunt started to feel airsick; Reno told him to upchuck, if he had to, in his helmet. Aviva catnapped, but woke when the sun came up to flood sea and coast with a rosy gold light. The landscape was breathtakingly bleak.

            “There it is!” Aviva pointed, shouting over the roar of the engines.

            Burning bronze in the dawn sunshine: Junon, the military-industrial complex at the heart of Shinra’s empire, a stepped city riveted to the barren walls of the sea cliff and dominated by the vast concrete barrel of the mako cannon thrusting out over the ocean waves.

            “Why is it such a desert?” shouted the grunt.

            “It’s the pollution from the underwater reactor!” shouted Aviva. “The old town’s nice, though!  If you get time you should check it out! I could show you around! I was here all last week,” she explained, smiling. The grunt smiled back, shyly, and a little queasily.

            “Cute,” was Reno’s dry comment.

            He brought the helicopter in to land at the airport on the top of the town; they all disembarked, and made their way down through the dawn streets to the hotel where the President was staying. Here Reno made a quick call to Veld to confirm their arrival. 

            “The President’s eating breakfast and doesn’t want to be disturbed,” said Veld. “Let’s see. It’s half past seven. Everything’s looking peaceful right now.  The President has an inspection of cadets to make at ten and a public broadcast at two-thirty. You might as well go and get something to eat. You won’t have another chance.”

            “Yes!” Aviva punched the air. “I love hotel buffets!”

 

.

 

            If any of them had hoped that the threatened attack would fail to materalise, those hopes were dashed soon after breakfast, when a gun battle erupted outside the hotel. Reno and Aviva ran to the presidential suite and found the old man more furious than frightened.

            “Who the hell do these people think they are?” he roared.  “If they think they’re going to stop me they’ve got another think coming.”

            “Maybe you should call Commander Veld, sir?” suggested Reno.

            “Bugger Veld! He’s as fussy as a mother hen. I’m confident you two can protect me.”

            A guard came running into the room. “Mr. President, sir, they’re in – “

            A fireball struck him from behind like an exploding star. Reno, Aviva, and the President threw up their hands to shield their eyes. When they were able to look again, there was nothing to be seen but scorch marks on the expensive purple carpet

            “What the blazes was that?” exclaimed the President. “Was that – _our_ materia?”

            “Ours now,” said a khaki-clad, goggle-wearing enemy as he walked into the room, gun leveled at the Old Man’s heart. “I’ve found you, Mister President.”

            “As if I’d let you!” cried Aviva. Her knives flashed, and the man went down.

            The President’s phone rang. It was Veld. They argued. Eventually Aviva was sent to sweep the hotel while Reno was ordered to stay and guard the President.  But the Old Man was impatient. He tapped his foot and read some papers and watched the clock and made some irritable phone calls, and finally said, “That’s it, Reno. I’m running behind schedule and there are many things that must be done today. Let’s go.”

            On the way they ran into Aviva. She reported the hotel clean. Reno wanted to wait for an armoured car but the Old Man was having none of it.  They headed out into the streets with an entourage of Heidegger’s infantrymen. 

            “Remember this, Mr President!” cried a voice from above. A sudden explosion sent Reno flying backwards.

            He staggered to his feet, wiping the dust from his eyes, and looked around, relieved to see Aviva’s little upright figure standing on guard in front of the Old Man, her pistol aimed at a top floor window of the hotel. All the infantrymen seemed to be safe too, amazingly. But their party was now divided. The entire width of the road had been torn asunder, peeling away the asphalt skin to reveal the steel skeleton of the machine gun emplacements beneath. There was no way across. Aviva, the President, and most of the grunts were on the far side of the chasm, while Reno, together with two more infantrymen, had been left stranded on the other.

            “Yo rookie!” he called. “You take good care of the President. I’ll sort out that fucker with the bomb, and then catch you up another way.”

            “Roger!” shouted Aviva.

            Some kills were more personally satisfying than others. The bomb had been a close thing, so when Reno trapped the bomber in the hotel’s stairwell, the payback felt sweet. From the stairwell he led the grunts up and over the rooftops and so to the service lift that took them to the military academy.  He made his way to the auditorium and found the President standing at the podium, Shinra’s scarlet and purple banners unfurled on either side, while the cadets marched past, eyes right, saluting proudly.

            Aviva looked hot and dirty, but very pleased with herself.  “I got eight of them, sir,” she boasted. “And the guards got six more. I used the materia like you showed me.”

            Reno lit a cigarette. To himself he thought, _that’s got to be at least thirty we’ve killed so far. How many more are there? How big is this group?_

To Aviva he said, “Nice work, kid.”

            Blushing, she grinned from ear to ear.

            When the inspection was over, Veld called the President again. The upshot of this argument was that the President agreed to give his broadcast from the company’s Junon branch office, where sophisticated security systems could be brought into play if AVALANCHE attacked again.  Why they couldn’t all just leave, fly back to Midgar, and make the broadcast from somewhere comparatively safe, Reno didn’t know, but he wasn’t the one calling the shots.

            Once again they split up. Aviva and half the grunts went ahead with the President; Reno and the rest of the soldiers brought up the rear, ready to take any trouble from behind.  The streets were quiet – eerily so, like a ghost town.  The citizens must have taken cover.  Reno made himself invisible in the shadow of a doorway and watched Aviva escort the President inside the branch office.  For ten minutes he waited, but nothing happened and no enemies appeared, so he followed them in. The foyer was empty, except for two guards.

            “Where is everybody?” asked Reno.

            “We sent them to the basement for safety. We have a message from your Director. He said you and the other Turk were to secure the building. We will be guarding the President.”

            “Is that right?” said Reno. “Then why didn’t he call _me_?”

            One blast from the EMR took care of both of them. “Guard the doors,” he shouted to the grunts, before running up the stairs three at a time to the press office. Here three more AVALANCHE operatives disguised as Shinra infantrymen lay dead on the blue-tiled floor. They had been shot in the back, and Aviva’s pistol was hot in her hand.  She wasn’t looking pleased with herself any more.

            “Oldest trick in the book, rookie,” he told her.

            “I’m getting pretty damn sick of this!” the Old Man roared. “What the hell is Veld doing? Clear those bodies away, Reno, and let’s get the cameras set up! Nothing must delay my broadcast. The public’s faith in us is our single biggest asset.”

            “I should be getting double time for this,” Reno muttered to himself.

            Aviva, overhearing him, giggled.

 

.

 

 

            By two-thirty-five a kind of peace had descended on Junon. The AVALANCHE threat appeared to have been averted. Perhaps they were all now dead. The office workers had returned to their stations, the broadcast equipment was up and running, the cameras were rolling, and the Old Man’s speech was going well.

            -_The Junon army is the people’s army. They exist to serve and protect you all -_

            “Looks like everything’s going to be OK,” said Reno to Aviva.

            “That’s a relief – “

            The world plunged into sudden night.

            “Power outage!” someone shouted.

            Reno felt small fingers brushing the back of his hand.

            Cell phones were flipped open and held up; glowing squares of light floated in the darkness.

            “Reno!” bellowed the Old Man. “What the blue blazes just happened? Can’t you people do anything right?  I might as well be paying monkeys! Monkeys in suits! Reno? Are you there? Get Veld on the phone! Get Veld for me _now_!”

            The phone rang. It was Veld. He ordered Aviva to get down to the basement, find the problem, and restore the power, while Reno stayed to guard the President.  It wasn’t long before the lights were back on.

            “She’s good,” said the Old Man. He dismissed the other workers, then turned to Reno and said, “Let’s go.”

            “Go?” exclaimed Reno.

            “My speech is ruined. There’s no sense in hanging around here. I have business waiting for me back in Midgar and – now what?”

            A young man stood in the entrance to the press room, holding a gun in his hand. He was of middle height and slim build, with delicate features, thin lips, and thick straight brown hair pulled back from a high forehead. His skin was very pale. He wore a pair of rimless spectacles; the light glinted on the glass, making it impossible to see his eyes clearly.

            He took a step forward and said, “It seems the power was restored faster than we anticipated. But no matter. We have already succeeded in preventing President Shinra from inspiring the masses with his heart-warming speech.”

            “AVALANCHE?” said Reno.

            The young man bowed. “You know our name. I am honoured.” He took another step forward.

            “Don’t come any closer to the President,” said Reno, moving to put himself between the stranger and the Old Man.

            “Just kill him!” shouted the President.

            But Reno did not want to kill him. They needed information; they needed to capture somebody alive, and this guy, with his geeky glasses and his soft hands and his high-collared grey coat, was clearly no ordinary operative.  If Reno could keep him here talking until Aviva got back, they should be able to take him prisoner without risking the President in a battle.

            “Tsk, tsk,” said the young man. “There’s no need to be so uncivilized. I don’t believe we’ve met in person before, Mr President, but of course I’d know you anywhere.  My name is Fuhito.”

            “Who gives a shit?” snarled the President. “Reno, what are you waiting for? Kill him!”

            “Gee, I dunno,” said Reno, “He looks pretty tough to me.”

            “I’ll take that in the spirit in which it was intended,” said Fuhito. “I wish I could prolong this interesting conversation, but unfortunately I have no time to dilly-dally. This, I am sorry to say, is where we must part – “

            Aviva appeared in the doorway behind him, out of breath from running, her knuckles bristling with knives.

            “Good timing!” said Reno. “Try to capture him alive; I’m taking the President somewhere safe.”

            “You can count on me, sir!”

            Reno was beginning to be impressed by how much she was enjoying this.

            The President had meanwhile flipped a switch under the desk that opened the secret door. He went through it, and Reno, rod in hand, followed. They made their way back to the hotel without any trouble. When they walked into the presidential suite, the large monitor on the wall was ringing.  “Answer it,” said the President. Reno pressed the button.  Tiny squares of colours swarmed the screen, resolving into Rufus Shinra’s pixilated features.

            All the harshness and impatience, and some of the strength, went out of old Shinra’s face. His eyes grew tender. He made a gesture as if he would have liked to reach out and touch that gigantic, perfect face.

            “It looks like you’re having some trouble, old man,” said Rufus. “I’ve been watching the CCTV. Are you all right?”

            “Rufus,” said the Old Man gently, “It’s been a while since I heard from you.”

            “I’ve been busy,” said Rufus. “Business. You know how it is. Anyway… Hullo, Reno. Long time no see.” _And if I never see you again_, his sullen tone added, _it’ll be too soon._

The kid sure knew how to bear a grudge, thought Reno, looking up at those huge, baleful blue eyes. Just like his old man. Once they got their teeth into something, they never let go.

            Rufus went on, “I’ve been watching your new Turk show off her moves. She’s not bad. What’s her name?”

            “Aviva.”

            “I’ll remember that. Tell her that I look forward to seeing her in action again sometime soon. Ah – you’ve got incoming. I’d better get off the line.”

            The face of the President’s son dissolved and was replaced by that of Commander Veld.

            “Sir, we have an emergency - ”

            _No shit_, thought Reno, _so what’s this day been up till now?_

“ - AVALANCHE have seized the mako cannon and are redirecting it at Midgar.”

            The old man went white with rage. “What?” he bellowed. “How could you have let this happen, you incompetent fool?”

            “We are taking steps to – “

            “No, Veld, you listen to me. My son’s in Midgar. We are not going to let those terrorists destroy my city. I want you to up the security level from A to S. Send one of your people to take back the control room – send that girl, she’s closest. Reno, get all the infantrymen you can find and get up to the cannon.  There’s no time to waste. You have to recapture it, no matter what.  Do you understand?

            “Understood,” replied Reno.

            Then he did what he did best – he ran.

 

.

 

 

            It was a hard fight, the hardest of his life, and the most hopeless. The enemy just kept coming.  Every time he killed one, two more, it seemed, ran in to take their place. The four infantrymen he had picked up in the hotel lobby were already dead – dead like the entire city of Midgar was going to be as soon as AVALANCHE unleashed the cannon. He would never reach it in time. He shot the enemy with his gun until the bullets ran out, and fried them with his rod until the materia was drained, and then he fought them with his fists and his feet and his teeth, and all the time he knew he was going to fail.  He was going to die, here on the streets of Junon, and Cissnei and Rude were going to die there in Midgar, and the Chief was going to die, probably with his phone clamped to his ear listening to Tseng dying at the other end. The Board was going to die; Rufus Shinra was going to die; the Company was going to crumble and the world fall into chaos, and he, Reno, was doing everything he could, but could do nothing to stop it.

_            At least if I die first, _he thought, _I can always hope some miracle happened to save them._

It was at this point he realized that the number of his attackers was thinning. He was still killing them, but no fresh ones were coming to replace the fallen.

            At least half an hour must have passed since he left the hotel. If they were going to fire the cannon – if they were able to fire the cannon – why hadn’t they done so?

            They must have failed.

            His attackers knew that they had failed: they were fighting without conviction now. One by one, they turned to flee.

Soon, no enemy remained.

The sun was setting. Long shadows lay across the road; red and black clouds streaked the violet sky. Reno looked back at the line of corpses marking the path he had tried to take from the hotel to the cannon. _That’s all of them_, he thought. _The only one left – is me.  _

From out of the evening sky he heard a familiar whump-whump. In a moment the helicopter was hovering above him, and he saw Rude leaning out the open door, throwing down a rope ladder.

            Time to go home.

 

.

 

 

            As soon as he was inside the helicopter, Reno’s phone rang. It was Tseng, letting him know that the President had been shot but was safe and out of danger, that the miracle had been Sephiroth, and that Aviva was down on the docks, injured and waiting to be collected.

            The dock looked as if it had been struck by an earthquake.  Rude could see no place to land among the rubble.  Reno went down the ladder and found Aviva huddled against an iron buttress, clutching a wound on her arm. Blood was seeping between her fingers.

            “Hey kid, you OK?”

            Aviva nodded.

            “Did Sephiroth do this?”

            “He wrecked the dock,” she said, eyes screwed shut against the pain. “But he saved me.”

            “Come on.” Reno picked her up and put her over his shoulder. Her body felt like the cat’s, all hard muscle and sinew, yet soft and pliable.  He didn’t have the strength left to carry her up the ladder (she weighed more than she looked) so he held on, and Rude pulled them both in.

            They laid her down on an army blanket. Rude handed them headsets and took out his materia case, giving one little green sphere to Reno, who swallowed it gratefully and then leaned back and closed his eyes, and offering another to Aviva.  She held it in her palm and looked at it closely. 

            “You’ve lost a lot of blood,” said Rude. “Take it.”

            “Is it OK to take so much? I gave Mr Reno a big dose this morning.”

            A smile touched Rude’s lips. “It’s how we survive.”

            “Warn her,” said Reno, still with his eyes closed.

            “First it hurts,” said Rude. “Then it feels good.”

            Aviva closed her fist round the green materia. With a swift, decisive gesture she shoved it into her mouth and gulped it down.  “I don’t feel anything – oh.  Um.  Ouch. It’s like pins and needles – “

            Reno lit a cigarette.

            “Do you have to smoke in the chopper?” asked Rude.

            “Yes, I do. By the way, partner, who’s flying her right now?”

            Aviva had begun to whimper.

            “It’s on auto-hover.” Taking the hint, Rude slid himself into the pilot’s seat, turned off the hover switch, and wheeled the helicopter up and away to the left, into the darkening sky.  He craned his neck to speak to Reno. “Let me know when you feel like taking over.”

            “Later, maybe.”

            Aviva was gasping for breath. Reno observed her dispassionately. In a moment, when the refined mako hit her heart, she would know the reason for the pain.

            Her whole body stiffened. She threw her head back and cried out loud.

            Then she sat up, taking deep shuddering breaths. She held out her hands and examined them slowly, turning palm to back to palm. She patted down her limbs, as if to make sure everything was in place.  When she turned her face to Reno, her eyes were sparkling.

            “That was just… awesome.  I feel amazing. My wound’s completely healed, look, sir –“ She rolled up her sleeve to show him a taut, smooth biceps.

            “Aviva,” said Reno, “What happened on the dock?”

            It took her a little time to tell the story: in her heightened state the words poured out as a jumbled torrent. Eventually, Reno managed to get the gist. She’d failed to capture Fuhito,  who had slipped past her guard, and she’d been in hot pursuit when the Commander called her with orders to get down to the cannon’s detonator and disarm it before it fired.  It had been a race against time: she’d had to fight her way past not only the AVALANCHE operatives in her path, but also Shinra’s own security robots,  programmed at S-level to kill anything that moved.  Like Reno, she had struggled on in the growing certainty that she would arrive too late – but when she reached the outer chamber of the control room, she found it heaped with the bodies of dead AVALANCHE operatives who had been, quite literally, hacked into pieces and thrown about with such force that blood was dripping from the ceiling. Slash marks scored the walls. Seeing this, she had felt, for the first time in that whole long day, truly afraid.

            But then the Commander had called her, and thanked her for disarming the detonator. She knew she hadn’t. So who had?

            That was when the woman had come in.  Tall, broad-shouldered, with shaggy short brown hair, she wore a cape over her khaki fatigues and was armed with a sword. Furiously she threw herself at Aviva, demanding vengeance for her dead comrades. She was strong and quick, flicking Aviva’s knives aside with the flat of her blade. The materia Aviva cast seemed to have no effect on her. Wounded, and realizing that if she stayed she would certainly be killed, Aviva had fled through a side door and found herself out on the dock with nowhere to run.  The woman came after her, sword raised.  That was when Sephiroth appeared.

            “He didn’t kill her?” asked Rude, who had been listening.

            “Maybe he didn’t try very hard,” said Aviva. “She blocked his attack and held his blade and he seemed, like, impressed. He asked her name and she said it was Elfe and she was AVALANCHE’s leader. And then she said – what was it she said? – she said ‘By retreating today we remain victorious’, and she ran off so fast I didn’t really see where she went, and he let her go, I guess. And then he spoke to me and he said that he sensed an unusual strength in her and that we were not to take her lightly. Oh my god,” she exclaimed, the realization only now fully dawning on her, “_He_ spoke to me. Sephiroth spoke to _me_.”

            “So this woman is their leader?” said Reno. “Not Shears?”  
            “I knew about the silver hair, of course, everybody knows about that,” Aviva burbled, “But I would never have guessed his eyelashes were so long and so dark.”

            “A woman who’s a match for Sephiroth,” mused Rude.

            “Did she say anything else?” Reno pressed her. “Did she say anything about who they are, or what they want, or why they’re doing this?”

            “She said to _him_ that they were fighting for a reason – she said it like she didn’t think we had a reason. But I don’t think that’s true, sir, do you? I think we had plenty of reasons to fight today. I think we have lots of good reasons.“

            “Money’s always a good reason,” Reno agreed.

            “But I think Shinra is worth fighting for. Don’t you, sir?”

            “You’re getting a bit of a mistaken impression, kid. Today was kinda unusual. We don’t fight entire armies single handed on a daily basis.”

            “But you haven’t answered my question.” Aviva leaned forward. The pupils of her eyes were widely dilated. “What do you fight for?”

            “I told you. It’s my job.”

            “There’s a million jobs in this world. Why this one?”

            “Who else would hire him?” Rude threw back from the pilot’s seat.

            “You know what?” said Aviva. “Today for the first time ever in my life I felt like I was doing something worthwhile. Like I was making a difference. Like it mattered whether I succeeded or failed. I helped save lives today. I think that’s worth fighting for. “ She took a gulp of air and rushed on, “So many people die who don’t deserve to. My family was killed in the Wutai war. I barely even remember them. And my mother, she lost her parents in the Great Continental War. I’m not looking for your pity,” she said fiercely. “I know my story is no different from a million other people. But we can change things. Shinra has the power to change things. Nobody else has ever had that kind of power.  I think we really have a chance to bring peace to the world for the first time in history. I really, really believe that.  And I know you do too or you wouldn’t be here.”

            Reno and Rude exchanged glances.

            “Aviva, Turks don’t discuss these things,” said Rude.

            “Why not?”

            “Because whatever you believe, you still have to do your job.”

            “Yeah kid,” said Reno, “If you don’t watch out, the President will have you writing his speeches next.”

            Aviva’s face scrunched up and her fists clenched. If she had had any knives left, thought Reno, she might have thrown one at him.  Turning her back on the two men, she lay down on the blanket.  It would be good if she could fall asleep. The materia seemed to have given her quite a buzz.  Once again Rude offered Reno the controls, but Reno declined: the long day was beginning to catch up with him. He leaned his head against one of the helicopter’s metal ribs, and stared through the window at the blue-green glow of Midgar, coming steadily closer.

            Aviva began humming.

            “Man,” said Rude, “She’s really flying.”

            “You gave her too much. She’s so small, half a dose would have been enough.”

            She said dreamily, “Mr Reno, can I ask you something?”

            “You don’t need to keep calling me Mr Reno. Or _sir_. The Chief is _sir. _Tseng’s _sir._ But me and Rude, we’re your partners.”

            “OK. Partner. Can I ask you something? I’ve been wondering all day. Is your hair real?”

            Rude burst out laughing.

            “Of course it’s real,” said Reno indignantly. “I grow it myself.”

            “You don’t dye it?”

            “No! It’s always been this colour. Who said I dyed it?”

            Rude was snorting, choking, on his laughter.

            “It’s so…. _red,_” she sighed. “Can I touch it?”

            “Rude!”

            “Hey, man, it’s only the materia talking. Be nice. It’s her first day, and she’s been through a lot.”

            “Well, all right, then,” said Reno to Aviva. “Just be careful you don’t mess it. And don’t pull.”

            He bent his head to her waiting hand.  Her touch was so light he could barely feel it.

            “It’s soft,” she murmured. “I thought it would be prickly. It’s so soft.”

            She stroked his hair backwards, like petting an animal. When her fingertips touched his scalp, his skin purred. Against the nape of his neck her resting hand was small and cool and heavy. Little shivers began to run down his spine. Time to stop. He pulled away, sitting back on his heels.

            Her hand fell to her side. She was asleep.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter very closely follows the BC script of Episodes 2 and 3 as set out by the Inimitable DA on her Gunshot Romance website.


	4. Lies and Other Crimes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Turks investigate an AVALANCHE lead, Aviva indulges in some comfort eating, and Rufus complicates matters

_ Extracts from the minutes of the Shinra Electric Company Board of Directors meeting _

_ Midgar, 21st  February 2001. 4.00 pm. _

_Present: President Shinra, Vice-President Rufus, Palmer, Heidegger, Scarlet, Lazard, Reeve, Hojo, Veld_

_… Item 2, the new threat posed by the group known as AVALANCHE_

_ Item 2.1 _

_\- Veld presented a report on events of the 20th February summarizing attacks made by AVALANCHE on Midgar and Junon, and distributed copies of existing intelligence on AVALANCHE_

_\- President expressed dissatisfaction with performance of Department of Administrative Research in handling of threat posed by AVALANCHE_

_\- Lazard Deusericus called for a vote of thanks to be made to the Turk Reno and novice Turk Aviva for actions above and beyond the call of duty. President vetoed vote._

_\- Scarlet stated for the record that it was not the business of Turks to fight hostile armed forces, but to identify and forestall threats to the company’s intellectual property_

_\- Heidegger proposed responsibility for AVALANCHE be transferred to Department of Public Safety Maintenance; Scarlet seconded motion. Motion put to the vote and defeated 6:2. President rejected motion._

_\- Vice-President Rufus proposed responsibility for AVALANCHE be transferred to SOLDIER with commensurate budgetary adjustments. V-P further proposed intensification of SOLDIER recruitment program, to be conducted jointly by SOLDIER and Department of Administrative Research. President seconded motion. Motion carried nem con. President accepted motion._

_ Item 2.2 _

_\- Professor Hojo proposed Turks make it their priority to prevent any further theft of materia or other property from company buildings. Motion seconded by Reeve Tuesti. Motion passed nem con. President accepted motion._

_There being no other business, the meeting closed at 4.45 pm._

_._

The next morning the Turks gathered in the briefing room, waiting for Tseng to give them their day’s assignments.  In the middle of the long ebony table the cat lay sprawled luxuriously on its side, paws kneading, purr rumbling, while Aviva gently tickled its white belly.

            “You doing anything tonight, kid?” Reno asked her.

            “Me?” Aviva stammered. “No – I don’t think so – no, sir….”

            “Would you like to go for a drink? You were so out of it when we got back from Junon, we forgot to drink a toast to your first mission. Kind of a departmental tradition.  D’you want to go tonight?”

            Her cheeks had turned a pretty shade of pink. “Oh…yes… yes, I would, sir. I’d like that.”

            “OK. Rude’s up for it too, and I’m sure the others will come. Hey, guys, who’s coming to the Goblins tonight to celebrate Viva’s first mission?”

            He was looking around the table, counting the raised hands, and so did not see her shining eyes turn dull with disappointment.

 

 

.

 

 

_From Tseng’s briefing notebook, dated 22nd February 2001_

\- Rude, Reno, Mink – SOLDIER recruitment.

         1. Candidate profile   2. Itinerary  3. Advance on expenses  4. Ship? Helicopter?

-Rosalind – AVALANCHE leadership invstg.  ‘Fuhito’ – educational records? 'Elfe' – medical records? Mako exposure?

\- Cavour – classified materia theft intel/surv

         suspectsa) Dr Maria Halberstand S-DSR/F/292 C

                    b) Dr Yared  Seega S-DSR/M/154 B

                   c) Dr Lane Wilbraham S-SOLDIER/M/54 B

         NB photos

\- Mozo – VP to Icicle Inn snowboarding

\- Aviva – sector 8

\- Knox – Fort Condor; monsters – Genesis? Further information needed   - Cissnei

- Cissne**i** – cont.

\- Self 1) ID pirates slums sector 3. 2) AVALANCHE - follow up Cosmo Canyon link 3) call Charlie  4) Don Corneo  5) archives – Modeoheim 6) Party 8 pm w/Pres. NB New gloves

 

.

 

         “So…” said Rude, “Looks like I’m stuck with you again, Reno.”

            Reno laughed. “What are you saying? Admit it, you’d rather work with me than anyone else.”

            Rude made a gruff noise in his throat that could have been a _yes. _“With you the work is never…. routine.”

            “You got that right, partner.”

 

* * *

 

_PHS transcript 8th March 2001, 13.37 _

_Cavour: Dr Wilbraham is the one, boss. He met his contact in the Sector 6 playground fifteen minutes ago and handed something over, something heavy in a bag. I took the photos like you said.  Now he’s on his way to the train station. I think he’s heading back to the office. I’m following the contact._

_Tseng: Good work. Send me the photos. I’ll intercept Wilbraham. Where’s the contact going now? _

_Cavour: Into Wall Market. _

_Tseng: Your orders are to take him alive. But be discrete._

_Cavour: Roger, sir. Cavour out._

 

_._

 

Form S-DAR.MIS/REP:6A

SHINRA ELECTRIC COMPANY

Department of Administrative Research

Mission Report

 

Mission to:           Sector 6 slums

Mission Objective:     Capture AVALANCHE operative and recover classified materia

Agents:               Cavour

Mission Date:          March 8th 2001

Report filed by:          Cavour, ID S-DAR/M/72.R

Mission status:          partially accomplished

 

Tailed target from Sector 6 playground into market. Target realized he was being followed. Target ran. Pursued target for approximately five minutes. Target took a kid hostage and said he’d kill the kid if I didn’t back off. I shot the target through the head @ around 14.15. Kid was unharmed. Parents very happy. Bag found at scene, contained materia. Returned with materia to HQ at 15.05

 

Signed: Cavour                                    Date: 8/3/01

 

.

 

_torn scraps in a wastepaper bin in the Turks’ offices, 8th March 2001_

_\- It’s sOOO quiet here without him_

_\- ~~Reno~~_

_\- ~~Mrs Reno~~_

_\- ~~Mrs Aviva Reno~~_

_\- ~~REN~~_ _ ~~©~~ _ _ ~~~~ _

_ ~~-~~ _ _ Youre insane. He has tons of girlfriends according to Rosalind . Why would he even look at u? He calls u a kid. ~~If he knew the truth~~  Hes only nice to u because hes nice to evryone. If Mr Veld could read my mind hed kill me. Why isn’t their a materia for this feeling? But I don’t want it to go away._

 

.

 

At 16.00 a small fire broke out in a wastepaper bin that had been carried into the Turk’s kitchen.  At 16.02 Aviva doused the fire with a coffee mug of water.  She took a bar of chocolate from the refrigerator and ate it sadly, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

 

.

 

 

                  Dr Wilbraham, materia thief, entered the lift on the mezzanine floor. It was crowded. He turned to watch the numbers light up as they rose smoothly through the building. Floor 45, Floor 46, Floor 47 –

                  A hand closed around his arm.

                  “Don’t make a scene,” said Tseng in his ear.

                  - Floor 48.

                  “Our stop,” said Tseng.

                  Wilbraham managed to stay brave long enough to step from the lift, but when the doors closed and the other people, the ordinary Shinra employees, the innocent, were carried away from him back into the life he already knew he had lost, his legs gave way and Tseng had to drag him to the interrogation room.

                  “Sit,” he said, throwing Wilbraham onto a chair.

                  “Do you have family in Midgar, Dr Wilbraham?”

                  “What? Yes – my parents. My brother.”

                  “Last month a terrorist organization called AVALANCHE temporarily seized the mako cannon at Junon and tried to turn it on Midgar. You’re a scientist, Dr Wilbraham. I don’t need to tell you what would have happened to your parents and your brother and everyone else in this city if they had succeeded. We also discovered that they are in possession of experimental weapons grade materia from our laboratories. The person who has been passing that materia to them is you.  I want you to tell me the names of your contacts and – “

                  “I can’t tell you,” cried Wilbraham. “I don’t know who they are! You have to believe me! I never knew his name! Help me! Somebody! Please! Help me!”

                  “No one can hear you,” said Tseng matter-of-factly, pulling on his black gloves. “And even if they could, nobody would help you.”

                  Tseng had hoped Dr Wilbraham would not waste his time trying to be stubbornly heroic. As it was, he had to break three of the scientist’s ribs before he would stop struggling long enough to be tied to the arms of the chair. One by one Tseng snapped the fingers of Wilbraham’s right hand, quickly and painfully and without any particular satisfaction. Wilbraham screamed and panted, screamed and panted.

                  “Tell me,” said Tseng.

                  “I can’t! Please, please don’t hurt me any more.”

                  “I don’t want to hurt you. But you have to talk to me.”

                  “I can’t!  Please! You don’t understand! They know where my family lives! They said they’d kill them!“

                  Tseng caught his breath on a sigh. Back in the early days, when he was still learning the ropes, he’d made a point of being honest whenever Shinra employees came into his hands. _Tell me what I need to know_, he’d say_, and I promise I’ll kill you quickly and painlessly. We’ll let your family have your body, and give them a respectable explanation for your death. _It had never worked. Never. Oh, he’d usually managed to get what he wanted from them in the end, but it had been hard, ugly work, unnecessarily so.

                  So he had learnt to lie. _Talk to me, and you’ll be all right. No one wants to harm you. _

                  He had been, initially, appalled by their willingness to believe him.  Treason was punishable by death; they knew that. But apparently the conviction that an exception could always be made in one’s own case was a universal human trait.  Tempted by hope, they nearly always caved in and told him what he needed to know.  When he was finished with them, he would call for one of his subordinates to escort them into protective custody, and then shoot the traitor quickly in the base of the skull as they were leaving the room.  He did not delude himself that this small mercy made him any less of a liar.

                  Sometimes the Commander let the family have the body. Sometimes the death, and the reason for it, was made public. Sometimes the individual simply disappeared. It was said in Shinra that the Turks were unpredictable: if you got lucky, if you could tell them something useful, they might be willing to strike a deal. 

                  Myths could indeed be useful, as the Commander had said.

                  Tseng now told Wilbraham, “We can protect your family. If you choose to cooperate – “

                  The door opened, and Rufus Shinra walked in.

                  “I thought I’d locked that,” said Tseng.

                  Rufus waved his key card. “You’ll forgive the intrusion. I’ve always wanted to watch you work.  So, what mouse have you got trapped between your paws today?“ He crossed the room and stood before the broken, bleeding man in the chair.  Dr. Wilbraham lifted his head, struggling to focus his eyes. “Rufus Shinra? Oh, thank heavens. Help me, boy. This Turk is trying to kill me.”

                  “Of course he is,” said Rufus. “And don’t call your Vice-President _boy_. What’s he done, Tseng?”

                  “Rufus,” said Tseng quietly, “Come outside.”

                  As soon as they were out in the corridor and the door to the interrogation room was shut, Rufus seized the opportunity to speak first. “Tseng, I hope you’re not going to be a bore –“

                  “You can’t come in there,” said Tseng, in the tone he adopted when reasoning with the younger Turks. “Veld would forbid it. And your father would be furious, and rightly so.  What I do in there is something no boy your age should see.”

                  “What about her, then?” asked Rufus, pointing at Aviva, who had heard Tseng’s voice and was poking her cropped head around the kitchen door to see if he wanted anything.  “She’s no older than I am.”

                  “She works here.”

                  “_I_ work here,” Rufus objected.

                  “You play here,” Tseng corrected him. “You can either leave now of your own accord, or I can phone the Commander, and he will call your father, and you know what your father will do.”

                  “Ah, an ultimatum.  Very well, then, have it your way. Even Turks have their scruples, I suppose. Though since I know perfectly well what it is you do in there, I can’t quite grasp why it’s such a problem to let me see it.  I’ll go, then – but first I have something for you. Look at this.”

                  Rufus reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a little glass vial. In the vial was a small white pill.  “I got it from Hojo,” he said. “It’s that truth drug they’ve been working on upstairs. I thought it might speed things up.  Get that into him and he’ll tell you everything he knows. Go on, take it.”

                  Tseng’s gloved hand took the vial and held it between thumb and forefinger. The pill looked as innocuous as an aspirin. He wondered if it _was_ aspirin.  That thought gave him another.

                  “Can I stay now?” asked Rufus.

                  “Aviva,” called Tseng, “Could you show the Vice-President to the elevators, please?”

                  When he was sure Rufus had gone, Tseng returned to the interrogation room. Dr Wilbraham had passed out, his head hanging down to one side. Tseng slapped his cheeks.

                  “Oh god,” groaned Wilbraham as he came back to consciousness, “It’s real – “

                  “Do you see this?” Tseng held out the white pill in the black leather palm of his hand. “It’s something Professor Hojo’s been working on. It’s a –“ _What might a truth drug be made of? – _“A cocktail of thiopental and Manipulate. You understand? To help you answer my questions truthfully.”

                  Listening to himself, he winced. It sounded ludicrous. Still, you never knew. There was always the placebo effect, and Wilbraham might be desperate enough to believe it. Sometimes all people like Wilbraham needed was an excuse to unlock the floodgates.  At any rate, it could do no harm. Worth a try, in other words.

                  Shoving a thumb into the doctor’s mouth, he forced Wilbraham’s jaws open and pushed the pill down his throat.  For a few moments nothing happened. Then, in front of Tseng’s astonished eyes, Dr Wilbraham’s skin began to change colour, starting with his face and fingertips, which were rapidly turning a livid purplish red.  The doctor’s eyes bulged in their sockets. He retched violently, over and over, and his limbs twitched and jerked with such force that the chair leapt off the floor and fell sideways. Wilbraham’s head hit the floor with a crack, but by this point Tseng had recognised the symptoms and realized the enormity of what he had, all unwittingly, done.

                  Dr Wilbraham, their one good lead to AVALANCHE, was dead from cyanide poisoning.

 

.

 

 

                  The Old Man hauled his son over the coals.

                  “Stupid boy! You stupid boy! What were you doing in Hojo’s labs? I told you never to go in there.”

                  “Lazard goes in there.”

                  “Lazard is a grown man – and don’t change the subject. How the blazes did you know about the truth drug? It’s a failed experiment – we’ve never been able to make it work properly.  Who told you about it?”

                  “Someone.”

                  “Who?”

                  “I don’t know. I can’t remember all the people I talk to.  It might have been one of the Turks; I’m not sure.”

                  “Rufus, don’t you realize the seriousness of this? What if you’d given that pill to one of your friends for a prank? Or, god forbid, taken it yourself?”

                  “Hojo shouldn’t make all his pills look alike, then.”

                  “We lost a vital lead because of you!”

                  “Well, but what about Tseng? I told him it was the truth pill because I thought it was, but don’t you think he should have known better than to believe me? I mean, Father, I _am_ only sixteen years old.”

 

.

 

 

                  “You should have known better,” said Veld for the twentieth or perhaps the twenty-fifth time. There was blood on his belt, the same blood that was soaking the shirt on Tseng’s back.

                  “I have no excuses,” said Tseng, to whom the beating had come as a relief.  He could forgive himself now.

                  Angrily Veld threw the belt to the floor. “That boy,” he exclaimed, “Is a perfect menace.”


	5. The Party in the Train Graveyard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rude files a mission report, Reno can't contact a friend, Aerith makes her first appearance, and some of the Turks go to a party

Form S-DAR.MIS/REP:6A

 

 

SHINRA ELECTRIC COMPANY

Department of Administrative Research

Mission Report

 

Mission to:           Costa del Sol

Mission Objective:      SOLDIER recruitment

Agents:               Rude, Reno, Mink

Mission Date:          March 16th 2001

Report filed by:          Rude, ID S-DAR/M/56.S

Mission status:          Accomplished

 

Arrived Costa del Sol 11.00 hours. Reno and Mink proceeded with identification and collection of potential candidates. Rude met with Charlie as per instructions. Charlie said AVALANCHE was not yet widely spoken of but he had heard the name mentioned once or twice. The offer was made to Charlie as per instructions. Charlie declined, but assisted Rude in the identification and collection of four SOLDIER candidates. Damage to the _Bar del Sol _estimated by the owner, Mr Mario da Silva, at g25,000. Firm quotation to follow. Rude advanced Mr da Silva g5,000 from expenses for immediate repairs. Please find receipt attached.

 

Selected candidates were brought to the ship and contained securely in the hold. Reno brought in five candidates including the one named Azul. Mink brought in six candidates, all from the _Club Duel_, after challenging and defeating the ‘King’ in hand-to-hand combat. Mink demonstrated exemplary battle skills and should be commended.

 

At 17.00 Reno went off duty. At 17.45 a fight broke out in the hold between Azul and some of the other candidates. Injuries were sustained. Azul was subdued by Rude with the assistance of Mink.

 

At 19.14 Rude received warning from Tseng of an attack by AVALANCHE on the ship. Rude left the ship to head them off. Mink remained to guard the ship. At approx 19.30 a force of AVALANCHE invaded the ship but were driven off by Mink and Rude. One of the AVALANCHE commanders, a man named Shears, reached the hold and released the candidates. Mink went after the candidates. Rude fought Shears and was knocked unconscious. At approx 20.00 Reno came back on duty, gave assistance to Rude, and assisted in the recapture of the candidates.

 

At 20.20 Rude received information from Tseng that the AVALANCHE ship was moored at Laguna beach. Rude and Reno went there intending to defeat and capture Shears. Shears fled. Reno and Rude returned to our ship.

 

At 24.00 ship set sail from Costa del Sol, arriving Junon Harbour 07.16 this morning. Transferred candidates to Midgar by helicopter, arriving c. midday.

 

Casualities: Shinra dead 0 wounded 0

               AVALANCHE   dead 12 (?)wounded 12 (?)

               Civiliansdead 0wounded 20

 

Signed: **Rude                        **Dated: 17/03/91

 

.

 

The printer whirred out two copies of Rude’s report, and he went to file them. On another computer, Reno was trying to write an email, but he was having trouble finding the right words. That was why he always talked Rude into writing their joint reports.  Reno preferred to talk. When he spoke, his words seemed to come out OK, but when he wrote them down they looked… wrong.  Rude would say it was because when you wrote your words down you had time to reflect.  Reflection… yeah, that was something else Reno hadn’t quite got the knack of yet.  Whenever he tried to take a good look at himself, he seemed to go all blurry.  It was like he could only see himself in sideways glances. Which made sense in his head, but would probably look stupid if he wrote it down.  And anyway, why would she even be interested?

            “Hi, Reno, sir.”

            He looked up to see Aviva standing at his desk, her arms full of files.  “Hey kid, how you doing? Been busy while we were away?”

            “Mostly patrolling Sector 8.  I caught some muggers and I killed a chimera bug, but other than that it was quiet. I heard your mission went well?”

            She had a little smile that came and went like a butterfly, landing on her lips and then flitting off again.  He could see that she wanted to talk. But he wasn’t in the mood.

            “Yeah,” he said, “There’s nothing like a sea cruise.” He pushed back his chair and stood up. “I’m going for a cigarette.”

            Rosalind glanced up from the gun she was cleaning. “Since when did you start leaving the office to have a smoke?”

            “I’m all out, OK?”

            Down on the cafeteria floor there was a cigarette machine in the rest area. Reno decided to take the stairs.  The rest area wasn’t too busy, just a few desk jockeys on break watching the TV news or reading the paper, and an army dude who looked familiar sitting alone on the other side of the big plastic tree.  It was the blond kid, the one who’d never been in a helicopter before.  Reno was surprised by how much it pleased him to see the boy alive.  At least the poor sucker hadn’t had to leave this world the virgin he so obviously still was.  Maybe he and Aviva should get together. There was no rule against dating Shinra employees outside the department, and she had seemed to like him.

            Yeah, she was a cute kid, he thought – for someone who was obviously a trained assassin and (he presumed) had had to sell herself in all sorts of ways just to stay alive.  That time in the helicopter when he’d let her stroke his hair still felt weird to him.  He’d expected Rude to needle him about it, but Rude had not mentioned it once.

            Taking his cell phone from his jacket pocket, Reno scrolled through the names and pressed the speed dial. It rang and rang and eventually he was transferred to voice mail. Third time today. It would be pretty pointless to leave yet another message.

            He bought his cigarettes and sat down under the big NO SMOKING sign and lit one.  Smelling the smoke, a few people turned to look at him. Hurriedly they looked away again. When he was finished he ground the stub under his heel, flicked it into the bin, and went back to the 48th floor.  Cavour had returned during his absence, and was talking with the others about a party he’d been invited to by one of the front desk receptionists.  It was happening that night, and it was going to be huge. The lab scientists, the army grunts, SOLDIER, finance, personnel – everyone was going. 

            “Down in the train graveyard? They have that party every year,” said Rosalind. “It’s so much fun. I’d go, but I’m on duty, and so are Mink and Mozo. And Knox has gone back to Fort Condor.  What about you guys?”

            “Count me in,” said Rude. “The music’s always good.”

            Everyone looked at Reno.  He heaved a sigh and said, “Yeah, sure, all right, why not? What could be more fun than dancing the night away with the same people I see in the elevator every day, the ones I take the stairs to avoid?”

            “Why are you such a grouch today?” asked Rosalind.

            “Because you’re all buggin’ me.  I’ll come to your party, OK? Now leave me alone. I have work to do.”

.

_ Private Email _

_ Subject _ _Hey_

_ From _ _  Reno_

_ To _ _   Cissnei_

_ Date _ _   17/3/01_

_I’m back. How are you? Eyes blue yet? They’ll get you in the end if you’re not careful._

_Why don’t you return my calls?_

_I guess that’s all I have to say._

His finger hovered over ‘Send’ for almost a minute, before moving to press ‘Delete’.

 

.

 

Rufus was making a nuisance of himself in Tseng’s office, walking around, touching things, opening files and pretending to read them, and complaining all the while. He wanted to go to the party but his father had grounded him as punishment for the Dr Wilbraham incident, thus sparing Tseng the task (since such tasks seemed to fall to him these days) of explaining that Shinra Company executives would not be welcomed in any case.  Employees needed to let their hair down from time to time, to break lose in a controlled environment. Tonight they would have a lick of what tasted like freedom; tomorrow they would return to work secure in the knowledge that there was more to their lives than the daily nine-to-five, and they would be, Tseng supposed, content.

            Rufus had apologized for Dr Wilbraham’s death. The apology had sounded sincere, though Tseng remained unconvinced that Rufus was, in any real sense, sorry. The problem with Rufus was that he was bored. He had a job title but no real work, and with time hanging heavy on his hands he wound up on the 48th floor more often than not, looking for company and making mischief.  He was drawn, Tseng presumed, by whatever it was about the work or the suit that attracted _applications _(Veld’s loathed word) from jaded young aristocrats in places as far as apart as Mideel and the Northern Continent. 

 However, tonight Rufus was not Tseng’s priority. He had another child weighing on his conscience whom he had put off for too long, in much the way that a man who knows he has a problem with some drug or alcohol will fight the longing, and defer the fix, in the struggle to master his weakness.

            He stood in front of the mirror, straightening his tie, neatening his ponytail.

            “Don’t you _ever_ change out of that suit?” said Rufus.

            “I’m working tonight. You’ll have to leave now.”

            He locked his door, using a key to which Veld had the only duplicate, and took the elevator up to the roof, where the helicopter he had ordered earlier was waiting to take him to the edge of the Sector Five slums.

 

 

            Over in the train graveyard, the boomboxes set up on top of the carriages pumped out music that echoed from dead engine to dead engine, setting the hollow cylinders humming. Imagine a pair of giant rusty metal jaws chewing through crystal glass to the beat of a dying monster’s heart: imagine that sound reverberating off the concrete belly of the plate, expelling the stale air from the lungs of the slums and filling them with the energy of noise.  The rats and cripshays and other creatures that lurked here had fled to quieter corners. Inside, between, and on the broken railway carriages, the youth of Shinra danced.

            Reno was wearing his other uniform: white t-shirt, black jeans, leather jacket. Keep it simple.  He had been here for nearly an hour and with three drinks inside him he was beginning to feel almost glad they’d made him come.  Rude had already gone off with a woman whose interest in him was clearly more than friendly. They were off in the crowd somewhere, grinding hips and getting messy. 

            What with the dust and the sweat, and the smoke and the shimmering metal, this party smelt to Reno like the rain Midgar never saw: like dry earth drenched by a cloudburst on a hot summer day.

            He had looked for Cissnei but not found her. He had called her to ask if she’d be here, but no one had answered. Maybe she was out of Midgar, out on a mission somewhere beyond the range of phone signals.  Could be.

            Up on one of the carriage rooftops, Aviva, in her drainpipe jeans and cropped orange top, stomped her feet in time to the rhythm, punching the air and shouting the lyrics.  That kid knew how to have a good time.  What was the saying? Pluck the flower of the day. Yeah.

            She caught him looking at her, and waved and grinned.

            Cavour appeared at his elbow. Reno bent to let the boy shout in his ear. “Over in the next carriage – they’re dealing materia.”

            “No kidding.”

            “Have a look at this.” Cavour pushed an irregular lump, about the size of a zeio nut, into Reno’s hand.

            Up above the plate, the guys in the backrooms of the labs did their own private materia fusing after hours, mixing equal parts of regen, the best tri-thundaga, and a secret ingredient they refused to divulge, to produce little turquoise balls with a golden sheen that guaranteed twelve hours of total bliss. Magic Stones, they were called, and they weren’t cheap, but at least they wouldn’t leave you with permanent brain damage. 

            What Cavour had put into Reno’s hand was no Magic Stone. He rolled it between his fingers. It had a greasy, cloying texture. He held it up to the light. Its colour was more grey than green, though it did have a yellowish glow. He sniffed it.  As he had expected, there was precious little materia there.  Some low-grade Lightning, but mostly crystalised ether, hyper, and locoweed – the kind of ingredients it was easy to get your hands on in the slums.

            “Dragon Fang,” said Reno.

            Cavour was familiar with it too. “I’ve seen guys die from that,” he said.

 “Yeah, this stuff is crap all right.”                        

            “Shouldn’t we do something?”

            “We’re off duty. Relax. Go have fun.  I’ll hang on to this.” He put the materia in his pocket, and turned around, and saw them.

            Cissnei and Zack Fair.

 

.

 

            The baby Tseng had once rocked in his arms was growing into a lovely young woman. This realization struck him anew each time he saw her.  Her eyes were sometimes grey, sometimes blue, sometimes green, depending on the mood she was in.  Her thick, light brown hair was kept tied in a long plait that hung between her shoulder blades and swayed from side to side when she walked. She was very slender, with little breasts and long delicate limbs.  Tseng imagined the ivory of her fluted bones. He could have snapped her in a dozen places with a flick of his finger. Yet she moved through these slums, this church, with her shoulders back and her chin high, unconscious of her own fragility.

            She said, “You have your serious face on tonight.”

            Preferring not to look her in the eye, he let his gaze wander among the pillars and the stained glass windows, relics of an older and, some might say, more beautiful world, though probably no more generous or less cruel than this one. Human nature was a constant. It was inevitable that she should have found this church, drawn to it in the same way that Rufus Shinra was drawn to the Turks, by a kind of homing instinct.

            He said, “I’ll be sorry when you have to leave this place.”  There was a line between honesty and confession, and Tseng was always careful not to cross it.

            “Perhaps I won’t have to.  Can’t we skip the speech? Let’s go sit on the steps and listen to the music.”

            Strange how it always seemed darker outside the church than in. She settled herself on the stone step, arms wrapped around her knees.  Tseng sat awkwardly beside her, straightening the knife-edge creases in his trousers.  The distant music throbbed hypnotically. She closed her eyes and moved her head from side to side, keeping time with the beat…

 

.

 

            Reno had never seen Cissnei look so happy. It made him want to smash Zack’s face in.

            Cissnei was his; she should be his. He wanted her. He _wanted _her. How could he not have known it till this minute?

            He wanted her so badly it hurt, like the craving he felt for the first cigarette in the morning, the cold beer at the end of a long day, the Cure after taking a beating, all the things he couldn’t live without. 

            He wanted to hold her like that, fit his hands to her curves like that, pull her tight against him. He wanted to bury his face in her hair like that, breathe in her scent. He wanted to run his finger down her backbone, suck on her earlobe, lick her pale neck. Kiss her soft mouth.

            He wanted to be the one she clung to, the one whose face shone in her eyes.

            He wanted her, but Zack Fair had her.  And she looked so happy. That was the knife blow. He had never seen _anyone_ look that happy.

 

.

 

            “Do you like dancing?” Tseng asked.

            “Uh-huh,” Aerith nodded. “When I’m alone in the church I dance sometimes. But I’ve never been to a party like that one.”

            “When you’re older, maybe,” said Tseng.

            “And will you be watching over me then?”

            _Always._

He said, “Time is a luxury you may not have. New enemies are springing up all the time. Last month they came close to wiping out Midgar. The time may soon come when we can no longer guarantee your safety down here. If any of these terrorists groups were to learn your identity, they’d come after you, and they would not make your welfare their priority.  I know that to you this must seem like a choice of evils, but I want to be sure that you understand your situation.  If we reach a point where, in our judgement, you’re in danger here, we’ll take you in by force – “

            “Who will? You will?”

            “Me or one of the others.”

            Aerith shuddered. “I’ll never go back in that building. To me it’s a prison. I’d rather die.”

            _If the worst comes to the worst, and they decide to give you to Hojo, I will shoot you, I promise. And then myself._

Having this plan tucked away in the back of his mind was like jumping from a helicopter knowing he was wearing a parachute – how far would he let himself fall before he lost his nerve and pulled the cord?

            He said, “You wouldn’t have to stay in Midgar. We have offices everywhere. You could let us take you somewhere where the sun shines, where there’s real soil under your feet. And grass. And rain.”

            “Rain….”

            Ah –the magic word.  She was tempted. Uncertainty crept into her face.

            It would be the best thing for her if she agreed. He had to believe it. He did.

            “No, I can’t.” Aerith shook her head. “I know you mean it for the best. But I can’t leave the flowers. They would die.”

            She looked into his face, deeply, earnestly, wanting him to understand.

            And this was why he came here less than he ought, less than he wanted to, more than he could bear to – because when she looked at him like that, he knew she was not seeing the Perfect Turk. She saw a man – maybe not a good man, but not an entirely bad man, either. He was her friend. She trusted him.  And he allowed her, encouraged her, to put her faith in him. It was his job.

            “Are you going already?” she asked as he stood up.  “You never stay long these days.”

            “I must. I only came to see that you were all right, that you didn’t need anything.”

            “And to lecture me,” she giggled.

            Such a longing she roused in him to hold something soft in his arms. 

 

.

 

            It was during moments of crisis, when most people would act on instinct and then regret it afterwards, that Veld’s training of his Turks paid off. 

            _Don’t feel. Think._

_            Don’t react. Act._

_            Be silent. Be secret. Be discrete._           

Knowing that if Cissnei looked over her shoulder right now and saw him, something bad would happen, Reno turned and tried to force his way through the crowd.  He would have liked to run, but the press of people made it impossible. Hands reached out to hold him, smiles invited him to dance, strangers’ voices called his name.  Everybody recognised the red-haired Turk. Normally they’d have drawn back to let him pass, but tonight they were all drunk, or stoned, or just happy.

            _My mistake_, thought Reno.

            He found himself being pushed past a bar. Grabbing someone’s drink, he gulped it down. 

            “Hey!”

            “Here,” said Reno, scattering a handful of gil across the counter. He snatched another drink and drained that too. And then another.

            And while he was doing so, another part of his brain was thinking furiously, and what it thought was this. He’d never claimed to have much in the way of morals.  Turks were practical people and morals rarely helped to get the job done.  So that was fine: other people could have morals, because other people had all sorts of stuff that he didn’t have and didn’t want and didn’t even understand sometimes.  But what he did have was a code of honour, the same as all the Turks. _Obey the Chief. Complete the mission. Cover each other’s backs. _Nice simple rules to live by.

            _Don’t fuck with your partner._           

            She was his comrade, his buddy; his fellow mischief-maker. They’d practically grown up together. She knew things about him he’d never told to anyone else, not even Rude. She was his _friend_. He would have trusted her with his life -           

            But this lust for her - this sudden, _aching_, out-of-nowhere urge to fuck her senseless - was like a snake chewing on his entrails. A hot, writhing worm. Irrepressible. All-consuming. Like nothing he’d ever felt before -           

            But she was his _partner_.  -

            His mind was going round in circles.

            Or maybe that was the alcohol.

            If he drank any more he’d puke.  He had to stop. He had to escape from here somehow, or at least get off this train of thought. Then he remembered the greasy little ball of adulterated materia in his pocket, the one he’d taken from Cavour and was saving for later. Now was later, or later was now. Whatever. Grimacing at its bitter taste, he tucked the dragon fang into his cheek and waited for its effects to soak through to his bloodstream. He hadn’t taken this stuff for years, not since joining Shinra, where unlimited access to the real thing was a major perk of the job.  But if he remembered rightly, it ought to do the trick. Or fry his brain, which right at this moment wasn’t looking like such a bad alternative.

            And anyway, she didn’t want him. She’d wanted Zack Fair, and now she had him. And she was happy.

            And anyway, she didn’t want him.  She wanted Zack.

            This music was so loud. The noise was making his head throb; his eyeballs seemed to be pulsing in their sockets.  His whole body jangled. Lights were dancing in a circle around him. Like someone had plugged him into the amplifier and was flicking the switch on, and off, and on, and off….

 

.

 

            The ringing of his phone woke him from a deep sleep.

            _Cissnei_

He was naked on the floor of a room he didn’t recognize, though by the light he knew it was somewhere above the plate. There were high windows, and a big bed.

            _Cissnei_

His phone rang insistently, guiding him across the room to where his jeans had been thrown over the back of a carved chair.

            _Cissnei_

He opened his phone. “Hullo?”

            “Reno, where are you?”

            “Oh, hey, Boss. I’m here, I think.”

            “Why aren’t you in the office? It’s nearly nine.”

            “Roger. On my way. I just have to go home and get changed first.”

            There was a long disapproving silence at the other end of the line.

            _Yeah_, thought Reno, _just bite me, why don’t you?_

“Make it as fast as you can,” said Tseng at last.

            _You know what, boss? _thought Reno. _You ought to get yourself some, instead of mooning around after that flower girl and kidding yourself you’ve got us all fooled._

What he said was, “Understood.”

            _Cissnei_

He got dressed and turned to look at the body in the bed. He, she, whoever they were, was lying face down, very still. Looking kind of dead, actually. All Reno could see was the back of their head. They had shortish fair hair and a pierced ear. Reno laid two fingers on their throat and felt a strong pulse.  So, just deeply asleep.  An enviable state.

            _Cissnei_

            He had no memory of this person or of what they had done together, if anything.  Woman, man, boy, girl –

            _Cissnei_

He wouldn’t look. He didn’t care. What did it matter, anyway?

            _Cissnei_

Having carefully removed every trace of his presence from the room, he let himself out, and quietly shut the door.

 

 


	6. Special Episode of Reno

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rude is perceptive, Reno gets more than he bargained for, and Zack tries to be helpful

Y_ou don’t often take a good look at yourself, do you, Reno? You don’t stand in front of the mirror counting the scars the way you used to when it was all brand new.  Any cut that doesn’t kill will eventually heal; that’s what’s written on your skin._

_            You’d have thought that discovering the truth about your feelings for Cissnei might have changed something, but like what?  It’s the same as Natalya’s death; you go on as before because that’s all there is to do.  No big drama. You work, you play, you crack jokes and laugh and sometimes you even forget all about it.  Your packet of twenty Bahamut filtertips doesn’t last the whole day like it used to, and you go out playing cards with Rude and Mozo more than you used to, and lose more money, and you do more overtime than you used to, and you put up your hand for the really dirty jobs a bit more than you used to, because sometimes someone else’s pain is just what you need. And when you go off work you prowl round the bars more than you used to, sometimes all night, until you end up at somebody’s place or else back at the office, and a couple of times you fall asleep at your desk, and almost a week goes by before you realize you haven’t been back to your apartment once. And quite a few times a day you think about her feet in those black stiletto heels, walking around above your head.  But you know you’ll get over it.  It’s just a temporary insanity._

_            This is the thing that scares you, though. The thought that she knew before you did.  Saw into you.  Knew you better than you knew yourself. Which means the reason she’s avoiding you is because she’s trying to be kind. _

_            You think about this from time to time, and then you get back to work._

 

.

 

_ April 1 st 2001\. 11.37 am _

 

            “I’ve done some pretty boring shit in my time,” said Reno, “But this beats all.”  He and Rude were in the archives of the science department, picking their way among the mess of papers and folders that covered the floor. “Why’d they have to trash the place?”

            “To hide what they stole,” said Rude. “Once we know that, we’ll know who they are.”

            Reno groaned. “It’s like the filing from hell. Why can’t they get one of the secretaries to do this?”

            “This stuff is classified. And the thief could come back.”

            “Well, I am not happy. Hey, partner, look what I made.” Reno had folded a piece of paper into an origami airplane. The word CONFIDENTIAL was clearly visible along the wing. He launched it at Rude. Rude caught it and smoothed out the paper, saying, “Just get on with the job. We have to put all this stuff back so we can find out what’s been stolen.”

            Reno picked up a ring binder and placed it randomly on one of the shelves. “That thief is long gone, man, trust me.”

            As if on cue, the intruder alert went off, red lights flashing, klaxon blaring. “So what triggered that?” said Rude as he continued to work. Several moments later a Red Saucer security robot trundled into the archive room. “We got a visitor,” said Reno.

            “It may have been activated by the thief.”

            “Rude, that’s crazy. The thief came here looking for something, so he knows what we keep here, which means he knows enough about the building to know he had about three minutes to get out before these things targeted him. He is gone and he isn’t coming back.”

            “Hmm,” said Rude. “We should be careful. Don’t take anything for granted.”

            As the last word was leaving his mouth, the Red Saucer made a whizzing sound and fired a bolt of electricity at them. Rude and Reno leapt backwards and the bolt struck the bookcase, burning a smoking hole through the wood and into the concrete of the wall behind.

            “Looks like Security’s been upped to S-level,” said Reno.

            His gun was already in his hand. He fired two shots in rapid succession. The impact of the bullets flipped the robot onto its back. It whirred, fizzed, and died.

            “Metal tortoise,” Reno laughed.

            “Speed isn’t everything,” Rude observed.

            “What are you saying?  Was that remark aimed at me? You big lummox, you’re just bitter because I’m faster than you and you know it. You couldn’t catch me the day we met, and you can’t keep up with me now.  If I was to take you on against those Saucers, I would _own _you, man.

            “Want to bet?”

            “Betcha a pair of sunglasses.”

            Rude cracked his knuckles. “Bring it on.”

            They grinned at each other, and ran out into the corridor. 

 

 .

 

_ PHS Transcript  12.02 pm _

_Veld: Cissnei, give me a damage report on the security incident._

_Cissnei: Nothing much to report from here, sir. We have a SOLDIER First Class dealing with the intruders._

_Veld: Sephiroth?_

_Cissnei: It’s Zack Fair, sir. Didn’t you see the personnel announcement?  Sephiroth is upstairs with the President.             _

_Veld: Good. And Lazard? _

_Cissnei: He’s here with me, sir._

_Veld: The security robots are malfunctioning. Do you know anything about that?_

_Cissnei: Hold on a moment, sir. &lt;sounds of static and voices talking&gt; Apparently there’s a problem with a number of the control systems in the building, sir, not just the robots._

_Veld: I’ll call you back._

_Cissnei: Roger._

_   
_

_._

             “Victory is mine!” crowed Reno. “Hand over the shades, loser.”

            Rude took off his sunglasses and gave them to Reno. Reno put them on.

            “Bug-face,” said Rude.  It was true: the combination of goggles and glasses gave Reno the look of a four-eyed insect.

            “This bug buggin’ you?” Reno laughed.

            Rude took another pair of sunglasses from his inside pocket and put them on.

            Reno’s phone rang. “Chief? What’s happening with the security alert? Yup. Check. Rude and I will get right on it –  Stay here? Do we have to? He is? Uh-huh. Yes, all right, sir. Understood. Uh-huh. Priority. Roger.”

            “He wants us to keep filing, right?” said Rude

            “Yeah.” Reno shoved his phone in his pocket and bent down to pick up an armful of files. 

            All the joy had gone out of him, just like that, like a pricked balloon.

            “You OK?” said Rude.

            “Never better.”

            “So who’s securing the building?”

            “SOLDIER first class Zack Fair.”

            “Huh,” said Rude. “I saw he got promoted.”

            They worked on for a few minutes without speaking.  Then Rude thought to ask, “Who’s re-aligning the security network?”

            “She is. Cissnei.”

            “Hmm,” said Rude.

            Reno flung his armful of files to the floor. “Man, he’s screwing her.”

            “Ah,” said Rude.

            “Huh! Hmm! Ah! Is that all you can say?”

            “It is – her mission, isn’t it?”

            “Yeah. Mission. And she likes it.”

            “Is that a bad thing?”

            “Oh, fuck, no. We should all be so lucky to have so much fun at work.”

            “Reno – are you jealous?”

            “Jealous? Of Cissnei?” Reno contrived a laugh. “Well – yeah. Yeah, you bet I am. She’s always been the Chief’s favourite, and now she’s up there in the middle of all the action while we’re stuck down here doing secretarial work.”

            Rude gave him a long look over the top of his sunglasses. “That’s… not what I meant.”

            “Look behind you!” exclaimed Reno.

            Rude whirled, and caught a glimpse of what Reno had seen: a shadowy figure breaking into a run. Footsteps rang through the empty corridors. The intruder was heading for the elevators.

            “Cut him off,”  Reno shouted. “I’ll follow him.”

            Reno’s feet barely touched the floor, but the intruder had a good head start. He was already in the elevator, and the doors were closing. If Reno didn’t act fast they would lose him. Levelling his EMR, he blew the doors apart with a single blast and leapt into shaft, landing square on the roof of the descending elevator.  Knowing it would be suicidal to risk damaging the lift’s mechanism with lightning, he took out his gun, and knelt beside the hatch to open it.

            The password wouldn’t work.

            _Fucking fucked-up security system!_

A Red Saucer dropped beside him, its laser eye seeking warmth and motion. Reno kicked it hard against the walls of the shaft. It shattered. Another fell. “I’m on your side, you brainless machine!” he yelled. He shot the robot, and then, in sheer frustration, emptied his magazine into the elevator’s roof. The bullets ricocheted, pinging in all directions: Reno covered his head and ducked.

            The elevator jerked to a stop so suddenly that he was thrown onto his knees and banged his forehead against the hatch. Where were they? The letters whitewashed onto the shaft wall read _20th Floor_.  Why had they stopped halfway down?

            There was a loud clunk that sounded seriously not good. The cogs shifted, the pulley squealed, and the elevator began to ascend.

            Under his feet he could feel a thudding. Someone was punching the elevator’s ceiling. Rude’s voice came to him, faint and hollow, from inside: “Reno! I can’t stop it! The controls are jammed!”

            And the elevator was gathering speed.

            The shaft’s ceiling was fifty floors above him. That gave him less than two minutes to get the hatch open before he was squashed like a mosquito against a helicopter windscreen.

            _Don’t panic. Breathe. Think._

_            Call Tseng._

_._

_ PHS Transcript, 1.4.01 12.07 pm _

_Veld: Cissnei, status report._

_Cissnei: The President is safe, sir. SOLDIER Zack Fair has secured the building. But some of the malfunctioning security robots have escaped into Sector 8 and are attacking civilians._

_Veld: What’s wrong with them?_

_Cissnei: I don’t know, sir. We’ve got some of the systems back under control, but not all of them.  We’re re-setting the passwords now. _

_Veld: Public confidence in Shinra is our top priority. Go and deal with the situation in Sector 8._

_Cissnei: Roger – sir, wait, I have Tseng on the other line. Let me put you on hold. Tseng?_

_Tseng: Cissnei, Reno’s in trouble. He’s trapped on the roof of elevator A108. It’s rising and we can’t stop it. The password to open the hatch won’t work. I’m putting him on._

_Cissnei: Reno? Reno?_

_Reno: Hey. Ciss. Nice of you to take my call._

_Cissnei: Don’t piss about, you fuckwit. Use this code: nineteen fifty-nine oh nine oh three._

_&lt;static. Sound of rumbling cables and metal gears grinding&gt;_

_Cissnei: Reno? Reno, are you there?_

_Reno: It says I need an override code. _

_Cissnei: Shit, shit, the override code –_

_Reno: Ciss, help me. _

_Lazard’s voice in the background: It’s fifty-four._

_Cissnei: Fifty-four_

_Reno: Fifty-four. Got it. Oh, no – _

_&lt;static&gt;_

_Cissnei: Reno!_

_   
_

_. _

 

He was coming up to the Presidential floor and his body heat had triggered a security attack: the President’s elevator doors opened, and a huge Proto-Golem robot made of shining steel and bright enamel came thudding down onto the elevator roof so heavily that for one wild moment Reno was sure its weight would snap the cable, and instead of being crushed like a bad nut he was going to plummet seventy floors and be smashed like a rotten apple.  But the cable held, and the elevator continued to rise, very slightly more slowly.  Reno lashed out at the robot with his EMR, to little effect. Its arms swept back and forth.  He was struck on the shoulder and sent sprawling.

            Seconds later, the robot’s head made contact with the ceiling. Still the lift continued to rise like a scrap compactor, scraping, screeching, crumpling, crushing. The air filled with the smell of hot stressed metal.

            Buffered by the robot’s body, the elevator stopped with a metre to spare.

            The hatch swung open, and Rude’s head and shoulders appeared.  He had taken off his sunglasses. They were tucked into his front pocket, and his brown eyes were wide with relief.

            “Hey, partner,” said Reno shakily. “That was exciting, huh?”

            “Yeah,” said Rude. “Be careful what you wish for, next time.”  He wasn’t smiling.

 

_ PHS Transcript 12.45 _

_Veld: Reno, how are you?_

_Reno: Good to go, sir._

_Veld: That’s the spirit. What happened to the target?_

_Reno: Rude thinks he escaped by climbing down the shaft cable, sir._

_Veld: Damn. All right, listen. We have a major problem on our hands. Some of the malfunctioning robots escaped the building and are running amok in Sector 8.  We need to get the situation under control before any civilians are harmed. Get down there as fast as you can and rendezvous with Tseng at the fountain. He’ll give you further instructions._

_Reno: Roger. Reno out. _

Clicking his phone shut, Reno turned to Rude and said, “I don’t know about you, partner, but I’m taking the stairs.”

 

. 

 

            Tseng was not at the fountain when they arrived, but Cissnei was.

            Dressed in her suit and steel-capped black boots, shuriken in hand, her cheeks spattered with blood and dirt, and with the light of battle in her eyes, she looked just as he remembered her: his old partner in crime.

            When she saw him she shouted his name, dropped her weapon, and came running, like a bullet, straight into his arms.

            “You’re alive!” she cried. “You’re alive.”

            She kissed him, hard, teeth to teeth.

            He was so astonished he had no time to be delighted, barely had time to savour the moment or fully appreciate that not even in his wildest imaginings (and they had been pretty wild) had her mouth tasted so good – before Rude coughed, loudly, yet discretely. Cissnei immediately recollected herself, and tried to step back; and Reno, being as he so often was his own worst enemy, held on to her a second too long, so that she had to push him away. And suddenly it was all very awkward.

            Nobody spoke.

            Then Cissnei punched him in the arm, hard. “You bastard,” she hissed. “You let me think you were dead. Why didn’t you call me?”

            Reno couldn’t answer. All he could think was, _You kissed me. _

            Rude – had he been casting about for something to distract Cissnei from Reno’s sudden attack of dazed stupidity? – took her by the arm and pointed, asking, “What are those things?”

            Beside the railings in the far corner of the square lay two bodies, human in form and identical in appearance. Both were dressed in rose-coloured leather greatcoats, with black shoulder guards and high buckled boots.  “Genesis?” said Rude in disbelief.

            “They have wings – well, a wing each,” said Cissnei. “I don’t know what they are. Come and see.”

            The creatures looked less like the awol SOLDIER when seen up close.  They had Genesis’ hair, but thin and lacklustre. They had his features, but somehow smudged.  And each had one sooty, mangy wing.

            “Monsters,” said Rude in disgust.

            “I don’t know,” said Cissnei. “Monsters are animals and animals are usually symmetrical. Two eyes. Four legs. Two wings. These things look like they weren’t made right to start with. They can fly pretty well, though. You’d think they’d go round in circles.”

            “Did they give you much trouble?” Rude asked her.

            “They may look like Genesis but they don’t fight like Genesis. They’re weak. I didn’t have any trouble killing them. I think they’re some kind of…. I don’t know… unfinished copy?”

            “They’re not from our labs,” said Rude. “Does the Chief know?”

            “I told him. There’s more than just these two, though – I’ve seen others flying around. Just what we need on top of the crazy robots.”

            She was talking an awful lot, Reno thought. Chatter chatter: a surge of words.  Right now he didn’t give a flying fart about copies or monsters or that self-absorbed git Genesis. He wanted to re-wind to the moment when she kissed him, and then pause – P-A-U-S-E -  But these two, Rude and Cissnei, were rushing time forward with their flood of noise…

            “So is Genesis here too?” asked Rude.

            Cissnei shrugged. “Anything is possible.  Listen, guys, we can’t allow civilians to see these bodies. Can you dispose of them for me? I have to try and track the other ones down.  Tseng should be here any minute. Wait for him. I’ll see you later. And Reno, you fuckwit – you owe me big time for scaring me shitless like that.  I won’t forget.”

            Bending down to snatch up her shuriken, she pelted off in the direction of the theatre.

            Rude said, “She’s getting - kinda bossy, isn’t she?”

            Reno’s single thought was flapping round and round inside his head as if it, too, had one wing. _She kissed me. Why? What does it mean? Something? Nothing?_

“Wake up,” said Rude, snapping his fingers in front of Reno’s eyes. “We have work to do.”

            The bodies of the Genesis duplicates were easily disposed of.  Their skin was like tissue paper, their flesh rotten: one jolt from the EMR turned them into blackish vapour. Job done, Rude took out his phone to find out what was keeping Tseng.  Reno, hearing footsteps, glanced round and saw Zack Fair, sword in hand, running towards them at the double with his head down: he was almost on top of them before he realized they were there.

            “Turks!” he cried.

            There was a note in his voice that Reno had sometimes heard before, the kind of tone a man might use when he lifted his shoe and saw a mess of dogshit and said “Ugh.”

            Most men who knew anything about Shinra would have been careful not to use that tone of voice within a Turk’s earshot. Not Zack, though – a SOLDIER First Class wouldn’t see the need to watch his mouth.

            But he must know that Cissnei was a Turk. Didn’t he?

            As if it had a mind of its own, Reno’s arm suddenly shot out, levelling the rod at Zack Fair’s face.

            “Get out of my way,” said Zack.

            Reno kept the rod steady. “Sector Eight is Turks’ turf, slick.”

            He wanted so badly to tell him.  _Hey, guess what, SOLDIER? Your girlfriend just kissed me. Like she meant it. _

            Rude had come to stand at Reno’s shoulder.

            Tell him, then kill him. They could always pretend the robots had got him.

            Zack said, “You gotta be kidding me. I’m here to help you.”

            “Rude. Reno.” Tseng’s dark voice came from behind them.

            “Hey, boss.”

            “Good to see you in one piece, Reno.”

            “Tseng,” said Zack, “What’s going on?”

            Tseng ignored him. “Reno, report.”

            Without moving his eyes from Zack, or lowering his rod from Zack’s face, Reno replied, “Midgar’s just crawling with nasties.”

            “Heh,” added Rude. “SOLDIER’s having difficulties.”

            “Tseng, man,” cried Zack, “Gimme a break here!”

            “There’s no need for concern,” Tseng told him. “We have everything under control. Rude, Reno – the intruder from the elevator has been sighted in the vicinity of the train station. I want you to track him down.  If possible, bring him in alive. But the first priority is recovery of the documents.”

            “Understood, Boss.”

            The two Turks wheeled away to the left and headed for the stairs that rose to the upper esplanade. The hands of the clock in the arch pointed to one-fifteen. It was lunch hour, and normally the pavements and plazas of Sector 8 would be thronged with hungry office workers. Today the place was deserted: the citizens of Midgar knew from experience that it was smart to dive for cover when there was trouble on the streets.

            At the top of the stairs Reno paused and looked back down at the fountain.  Cissnei had returned; she was talking with Tseng and Zack. But something wasn’t right about the scene.  She and Zack – they were standing so stiffly – as if – as if they barely knew each other.  Why? For whose benefit? What was going on?

            Who was telling the lie here, and who was being lied to?

            “Come on,” called Rude. “He’s getting away.”

            “Yeah – just hang on -”

            Rude came back. He looked at Reno, then looked down at the fountain, and saw Cissnei run off under the clock arch, twirling her weapon. A moment later Zack ran after her.  Rude turned to Reno, chuckling. “_Slick_? Where the hell did that come from?”

            He saw the look on Reno’s face, and stopped laughing.

            “Oh man,” he said, “Don’t go there.”

            “Already bought the ticket, boarded the train, and ridden it to the end of the line.”

            “Shit,” said Rude with feeling. “That bad, huh?”

            “Nah. I’ll live.” Both Cissnei and Zack were out of sight now, and Tseng was walking away at his usual measured pace in the opposite direction. Reno shook himself, waking from the daydream to address the business at hand. ‘C’mon, tortoise, let’s go get our man.  To the train station! Race you!”

 

 


End file.
